Ruth 1

My name is Dave Gibson. I am a retired pastor. I've been here for about four years. My wife

says my husband's retired, but he's not very good at it. In that vein, some of you know I'm

planning to lead a trip to Ecuador the first week of December. We're going to do 5 days of

evangelism down there. We'll leave here on November 30, come home on December 7, taking

about 15 people. I have room for 10 more people if any of you would be interested in stepping

outside your comfort zone. And being used by God and having a front row seat when someone

puts their hope in Christ about four feet from you.It's a glorious thing. It's like Turkish delight,

friends. Once you've done it, you'll do anything to get it again. So we have some Flyers on the

back table at the welcome desk. I appreciate it if you grab one. If you're interested, obviously

catch me after the service. Happy to speak to you about that as we're going to do some training

here in a couple of months and then raise support head down there. I've done about, I don't

know 40 of these trips. I've never had one person not go. Because the funds didn't come in.

That's how faithful God is. So if you're worried about the $2900, please don't. The Lord works

that all out.

So with that said, we're going to look today at the beginning of a series on the book of Ruth.

We're going to do 4 messages, one for each chapter. I love this book. It is a book with three very

sterling people in it, Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, remarkable people and. Obviously you've probably

read this book, but I'm hoping that we'll get a fresh look at the way these people honored Christ

as they were pressing through life in a very difficult time. There is an outline on the back table. If

you want one, you're free to go grab it. I'm a person who loves paper and outlines and visual

things. Some of you are more electronic than me, and God bless you. I trust paper, but I do not

trust electrons. So there you have it.

This book, if I were writing a title to it, I would say if I were writing a book about this book, I

would call it sticking with God against the odds. Sticking with God against the odds. If I were

going to put a subtitle, I'd put two believing women and one shepherding God. If I was allowed a

second subtitle, I would put the Scottish proverb that says God writes straight on crooked lines.

God is always good and He's always up to something. He's wringing his hands in heaven about

nothing, and this book is a classic example of God being up to something good in the midst of

some people's lives who were struggling.

The book is written during the time of the Judges. So that would be about 1360 BC to about

1040 BC. The Exodus was about 1400. So this is the time when there was no king in Israel. The

nation was ruled by a series of regional judges, one after another, ruling some regions of the

area, and these judges were raised up by God to deal with the troubles. And in this book, the

people of Israel went around a thing called the Cycle of Judgment. They started with God's

blessing and then they rebelled and started worshiping the Bales and the other gods of the

Canaanites. And then they suffered God's judgment, including famine or oppression by the

Philistines or some struggle. And then they came to their senses and repented. And then God

delivered them and they came back to blessing, blessing, rebellion, judgment, repentance. And

it goes around and around, rinse and repeat is like watching the washing machine with a glass

front on it.

It just keeps going. This happens many, many times in the Book of Judges. The book of Ruth is

set right in this time when many people are turning away from God.

Judges 21:25. “ In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his

own eyes.” That is a ticket for peer trouble. We live in those kinds of times, people not guided by

this book or by the person of God. They did not have a single leader who loved God. Who had a

moral backbone, who had a white hot passion for God, Who cared about people. They didn't

have that. And so everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes. It was a train wreck. It

was a dumpster fire.

And in the midst of that dumpster fire, there were three people who still love God. Three people

who live for God in the midst of a dumpster fire. It can be done. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach

Abednego, Ruth, Naomi and Boaz. It can be done.We have all that we need for life and

godliness and it doesn't matter what's burning around us, we have what's needed for life and

godliness.

So with that, by way of background, would you find Ruth in your Bible, please? And we will take

a look at Ruth. I'll read chapter one. That's what we're going to be looking at today and then

work our way through it.

It is a three act play as we watch in this first chapter what's happening to these three people.

Ruth, Chapter One.

Verses 1-5. ”Now it came about in those days when the judges governed, there was a famine in

the land and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to soldier and in the land of Moab with

his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech. The name of the wife was

Naomi. The names of the two sons were Malon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites of

Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech,

Naomi's husband died. And she was left with her two sons. They took for themselves Moabite

women as wives. The name of one was Orpah and the name of the other was Ruth. And they

lived there for about 10 years. Then both Malon and Chilean also died. And the women were

bereft of their of the woman was bereft of her children and her husband. “

Verse 6- “Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of

Moab., for she had heard in the land of Moab that the Lord had visited His people in giving them

food.”

So we are coming back to the repentance, back to the blessing part of the cycle.

Now there's food there and so she says I'm going to go and go back there.

Verses 8- 13 “Naomi said to the two daughters-in-law, go return each of you to your mother's

house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May the

Lord grant you to find rest, each of you in the House of her husband. Then she kissed them and

they lifted up their voices and wept, and they said there were no, but we will surely return with

you to your people. But Naomi said, return my daughters, why should you go with me? Have I

yet sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Return my daughters, for I am too old to

have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and bear sons,

would you therefore wait until they are grown? Would you, would you therefore wait till they're

grown? Would you refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it's harder for me than for you.

Return to the land of the Lord. Return. I'm sorry I lost my place, for it's harder for me than for

you. For the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me.”

Verse 14 - 22 ‘“They lifted up their voices and they wept again. And Oprah kissed her

mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. Then she said, behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to

her people and her gods return after your sister-in-law.

But Ruth said, 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. And then she takes an oath against

herself. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.

And when she did, that is when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her. She said no

more to her, so they both went until they came to Bethlehem.

And when they had come to Bethlehem, their city was stirred because of them. And the women

said, Is this Naomi? She said to them, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara. The word means

bitter, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought

me back empty.”

Why do you call me Naomi? Her name means pleasant. Why do you call me pleasant? God has

dealt bitterly with me since the Lord has witnessed against me in the Almighty, has afflicted me.

So Naomi returned and with Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the

land of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Before we pray and look at this, let me say one thing before I forget. Verse one is famine and

then the final verse is barley harvest. That's the contrast of what's happening in this cycle.

Father, please guide us as we think about this book together.I pray we'll understand it. I pray we

will accept it. I pray we will adjust our lives as Your Spirit guides us. Father, I know I don't have

anything written on this paper that will help unless your spirit works. So I pray for your

transformation in my heart and in our hearts. We need your help to this end, and we pray in

Christ's name, Father, Amen.

Decades ago, I was teaching at Alaska Bible College. I was invited to speak at a church in

Fairbanks, about 250 miles from home. I'd spoken there many times. I knew the people.

It was summertime. I wasn't teaching at that time. So we got in our truck, drove 250 miles.

They put us up in a Christian camp for the week because I was going to be speaking that

Sunday and then the next Sunday, and we were in good shape. We had a place to live. We got

there on time. We had one little issue that was that we're down to $2.00. We're making 19,000 a

year. We were subsistence shooting moose, getting salmon. We were scraping. We got there.

We had $2.00. But I knew I'll preach in the morning. They'll pay me. They always do. I'll have an

honorarium check. We'll have food for the week. We're flush, it's good. So we go the next

morning. I preach after the service, I'm talking to some folks. The treasurer rushes up to me

and says. Dave, I forgot the church checkbook today. I'll catch you for both Sundays next week.

And he rushes away and I'm thinking, no, I'm not flush. I'm busted. We got 2 bucks, five people,

six days. I don't know how we're going to eat. And before I could even tell Kathy about this,

we're walking out the car and we're heading to our pickup and a guy grabs me and he says,

Dave, hey, we want to take you to lunch. I feel great, wonderful. I'm thinking it's the Last Supper

for our family. We're done. We'll tell the kids, order big, fill your pockets with crackers. We need

to do something here.

So we went to lunch. We had a wonderful lunch, wonderful conversation. I still remember his

name. His name is Don May. I don't imagine he could be alive anymore, but he was a gold

miner, loved Jesus with a passion, and bought us lunch. We're walking out to the truck. I'm

starting to noodle again on the question of how are we going to eat? He said, Dave, Dave,

Dave, wait a second. He said, I want to give you something. And I walked back to him and Don

opened his wallet and he had about 10. $100 bills in there and he took one of them out and he

gave it to me and I thanked him profusely. He probably didn't understand it. And I went back to

the truck with my 100 bucks. I don't even know if I ever told Kathy that, but I thought we were

flush. We're going to get an honorarium. I was wrong. We were busted then. I thought we were

busted. We got 2 bucks. I was wrong. We were flush.

I told you that story because this is a story in the Bible about being confused, about being flush

or busted.

I was. I was wrong 3 decades ago about that, and Naomi was wrong 3 millennia ago about that.

She was flat wrong. She got it wrong twice. We're going to talk about how she got it wrong in

just a little bit. But this, there is a very powerful lesson here dealing with this issue of what if our

responsibility is not to spend our whole time deciding whether we're flush or busted?

What if it is our responsibility to be more focused on God and on faith and then on the

assessment of OK, we're good or we're bad, we're OK, we don't need God or we're toasted.

Even God can't help.Or we flush or bust it. And what if deciding whether we're flush or busted is

simply not our responsibility?

So I want to look at this first chapter together with you. It spells out a three act play. There's

three acts in this first part of the book chapter one.

Act One: The family leaves Bethlehem. “The house of bread”...because there is no bread.

(vv 6-18)

stark for us. But this woman has suffered a ridiculous loss. That's the end of act one.

Act Two: Naomi rises to return because God has now given bread in Jerusalem. I'm sorry, in

Bethlehem. (vv 6-180

Here's the action. She said, hey, the Lord has visited his people by giving them food. She

recognizes it's the work of God. She's going to head back there. She's still a follower of God.

She's got these two daughter-in-law's, Orpah and Ruth. She tries to send them back to their

Moabite families because she loves these women. And she reasons that's their best chance of

getting married, having husbands, having children, having security in their old age. I don't want

them to go with me. Who's going to marry a Moabite In Israel?. I don't want them to go with me.

I love these ladies. And so she tries to send them back.

Verse 8, “Naomi said, may the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and

with me. You've been wonderful daughter-in-laws. God bless you.” And so they have this

amazing relationship. They love each other. They want the best for each other.

This chapter takes 10 verses of these women arguing and crying and hugging and kissing. They

have an amazing relationship. She wants them to go back. They don't want to go. No, go back.

We're not going back. Finally, Orpah relents and she goes back. And the 10 verses in this

chapter are dealing with how much these women love each other and their unwillingness to part

from each other. And yet Naomi's saying, you don't have a future in Israel. Don't go with me. 10

verses. Here's the outcome.Orpah goes back. She kisses her mother-in-law. She weeps, she

returns to her family.

And Ruth says. I'm having nothing to do with that, not me. And she makes this amazing,

passionate, beautiful speech.

Verse 16 & 17. “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from following you. For where you

go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Your God will be

my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. And thus May God do to me, and

worse, if anything but death parts us.”

Ruth said. I'm with you and more importantly, I'm with your God. She became a God follower.

A Gentile became a God follower and joined the Jewish faith.

It's like me when I was 19, as an utterly lost, confused person, saw the truth about Jesus Christ

and said I'm in. I saw that I had a sin problem. I knew clearly I was separated from God. I finally

understood I needed to trust Christ. I made that decision and I was drawn into the family of God.

Best decision I ever made in my entire life. Ruth made it, she said. I'm with you. But more

importantly, with your God, that's the end of Act Two.

Act Three: Naomi arrives in Bethlehem but she wants to be called “Mara” (vv 19-22)

These women travel about 50 miles. They come back to Bethlehem. The people in the town

recognize Naomi. It's not a big place. They recognize Naomi. The city is all stirred up. It's the

barley harvest. The men are probably gone harvesting. And it specifically says the women, The

women in Bethlehem say, is this Naomi?

Now, please understand, we're 12 to 15 years out from when she left. She has aged. She has

lost three family members. She's dealt with famine and travel. She's probably exhausted from

traveling. She doesn't look like the girl who walked out of here. She doesn't have her husband,

her two boys. She has a Moabite woman with her. Is this Naomi? I don't know how they ask

that. I don't know if that means it could be Naomi or does that mean, hey, look what the cat

dragged in?

Didn't think you were coming back. I don't know what the spirit they said this to her in, but they

recognized her. She's back and she says to them, do not call me Naomi, which means pleasant.

Call me Mara verse 20, which means bitter for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. She's

embittered about her losses. She credits God with dealing bitterly against her. But she's still with

God. She's not an atheist. She's not rejecting God, She's not a real happy God follower right

now, but she's still with God. And her assessment is that the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.

Paraphrase, God hammered me, God hammered me. Now, friends, you've probably been there.

And it's really easy to condemn Naomi. I mean, we're reading this three millennia later and

saying, oh, come on, buck up, girl. God didn't do this. We've all been there.

The reality is we lose family members, jobs, dreams. All of this happens because we live in a

sinful world, because of the world, flesh and the devil, because it's an unfriendly universe, not

because God hammers us. That doesn't sound like God. That doesn't sound like the way he

treats us. Is it really God's fault? No, it's not God's fault. Matthew 7:11, ”If you then, being evil,

know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give?

Good gifts to those who ask him.”

The reality is theologically, she suffered because she lives in a fallen world. No, because God

was against her. God's for her, God's for us incurably. He can't help himself. He just loves us

ridiculously.

But to her credit, she's still following him. Here's the assessment that she gives in

verse 21. And I think this is the crux of the thing we need to think about. I went out full, but

the Lord brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi since the Lord has witnessed

against me and.the Almighty has afflicted me. I went out flush but I came back busted.

She made an assessment about going out full. She made an assessment about going out

empty. And I want to ask you to consider that she was dead wrong both times.

Here's what Naomi had when she went out. She defines this as full. She had the God of the

universe, that's full. She also had to leave the promised land because of judgment. That's not

full. She was going to live in Moab, the land of enemies. That's not full. She was fleeing famine,

That's not full. She had a husband who's going to die in a couple years? That's not full. Two

sons who are going to die in 10 years, that is not full. She missed it. I don't think she went out

full. She was closer to busted than flush. And then she says I came back empty. She missed it

again. What did she come back with? The God of the universe that doesn't meet the definition of

empty. She came back to the promised land. She came back to the barley harvest. She came

back with a daughter-in-law who is about to put her in the line of the Messiah.

That does not equal empty. That's flush.

She got it flat wrong twice. I'm not dumping on Naomi. I've gotten it flat wrong too many times.

I've been embittered for far less than losing a family member. I'm simply saying we have a

lesson to say, have I got this flat wrong about where I am and who God is and what he has done

for me? Am I really flush or am I actually busted? In this situation, I want to ask you to consider

this one question.

What if about 50% of the time, we're completely wrong about being busted or flush?

What if about 75% of the time we have no idea what got us up to?

What if about 98% of the time we have no idea about what God is about to do?

Naomi had no idea. About a great thing that God was about to do. She was just busted and

bitter.

I've been there too much. I want to close by telling you one more story, please. A few decades

ago, we were raising support to go to Alaska and be missionaries. Our support was coming in

decently. We were quite encouraged. I finished seminary. I had a position in Alaska, was going

to be a Dean of students and an instructor and it was going well. We had one little hitch, which

is we needed a vehicle.The current car we owned was number one, a piece of junk, #2 our

family couldn't fit in at number two or three. It couldn't pull a trailer. We needed a vehicle, so I

put this prayer letter out making it very clear we need a big vehicle. That can haul our family and

pull a trailer and I put it out in.

Semi faith, you know, sort of faith. Not really faith. Lord, I believe it will help my massive

unbelief. And for months nothing happened. And I'm getting to a place where I'm saying this is

not going to happen. We're busted, we're busted, and I'm not happy. One day a friend called me

and asked me to come to their house for the weekend. They lived about 3 hours from us. He

was a logger. And so we went to their house for the weekend and they got to situate our rooms

and they fed us supper. Then Earl said, Dave, I want you to run some errands with me. So I got

in his pickup and we went to run some errands and he drove to an apartment building where

one of his guys worked and sitting at that apartment building was a 2 year old. Three quarter ton

4 wheel drive. 6 passenger - a beautiful 400 cubic inch, no dents on it at all.

Stunning, gorgeous pickup. And he said, Dave, I'm going to give that to you. I wasn't busted,

friends. I was flush. I was flush. He gave us that truck. We moved to Alaska. We served in

Alaska for nine years. We moved back to Idaho Falls to pastor there. We owned it for 19 years.

It was a gorgeous vehicle. I cried when we sold it. It was an amazing truck. We were flush.

But I was pretty sure we're busted.

Friends, what if there is a God working behind the scenes? And even if we feel like we're

busted? He's about to do something. What if? Let me pray for us, please.

Father, thank you for what you did for Naomi. Oh my goodness, thank you. Thank you that you

had your people write it down. Thank you, you preserved it for three millennia. Thank you that

we can read English. What a gift. Father, I confess to you that there are certain ways in my life

in which I have felt, even in these last weeks, pretty busted.

I confess that is sin, Father.

That's a focus on the dumpster fire. That's not a focus on you. Please forgive me. Lord, we're

asking you today when you break in and do something amazing, something we can't imagine,

we're asking. Father, you know, forgive me, this is not exactly apply, but may the latter glory of

this body be greater than the former glory because of you.

Please God.

In Jesus name, Amen.