Ruth No. 1 A Strange Providence (v2)

C.S. Lewis was a very great man, at least in my reckoning, and converted to Christianity at Oxford University during the 30s when it was not the thing done to convert to Christianity. In fact, I think our universities were at that point just training spies for the Soviet Union. At least quite a lot seemed to have gone that way.

Now, Lewis once was taking leave of one of his now mature students, who actually had lost his wife, who he loved very, very dearly. And Lewis referred to the incident as being a severe mercy, a severe mercy. Now, God's providential dealings with us, my brothers and sisters, sometimes are in the area of severity.

That's why we sang together that great hymn, God moves in a mysterious way. Cooper goes on to tell us, ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Now, if I had to sum up the theme of the first chapter of this rather remarkable little book, the Book of Ruth, I think that I would go for C.S. Lewis's words, a severe mercy.

But more of that in a moment or two. Here is the most outstanding book, slender, only eighty-odd or so verses, four chapters, dedicated to a woman, only one of two books in the whole of the Bible that actually bear the inscription of a woman's name. And this not an ordinary woman.

She wasn't a queen like Esther. She wasn't a prophetess like Deborah. She wasn't even a Jewess like Hannah.

I refer to Ruth, a woman who is brought into the purposes of God almost at the human level by chance, a marriage of a Hebrew lad to her as he with his brother and his parents find themselves in her country. I think it was Michael Jenkins in our time of prayer as elders earlier this morning who talked about God's involvement in the personal affairs of our lives. Michael expressed it more eloquently than that.

The idea being that God thinks of you as a person, as an individual, and not just of society or even this congregation on mass. And this is what we find as surely one of the most important points in the very inclusion of the book of Ruth in the Old Testament canon of Scripture. She becomes a very important person as part of the pedigree, the family tree of our Jesus Christ.

It seems as though God in his great goodness allows the great sweeps of history just to pause for a moment or two because Ruth is situated right in the middle of the great historical books of the Old Testament. And he gives us this little account of the life of two widow women, one Ruth younger than the other Naomi. And he focuses attention on these two as though to say, ordinary people have great importance in my life.

And those who have heartbreak especially are folk with whom I want to deal in a very tender fashion. So let that be our opening encouraging thought as we come to a series of studies which won't take many Sundays on this lovely book of Ruth. God is concerned with ordinary people and sometimes he shows it by his strange mercies.

Now it seems to me very briefly as we look at the introductory verses in the opening chapter that we see at least three main shifts in the story. There is first of all an unfortunate decision and then there is a timely revision as Naomi decides to return to the town where she had been brought up. And then there is a difficult recognition.

Can this really be Naomi? Well with those sort of three levers if you like to apply to these verses we're going to approach this chapter. First of all an unfortunate decision. It came to pass as the authorized version introducing the first verse and some of the NIV writers in their unwisdom left that phrase out.

It came to pass. Various things were developing in the days when the judges ruled and there was a famine in the land of Canaan which especially affected a man from Bethlehem by the name of Elimelech. There are things that ultimately will be which will come to pass in your life and become a has-been.

Well here is the experience for Elimelech. It came to pass there was a famine in Bethlehem. Strange place really to have a famine.

Paradoxical I mean by strange in one sense because Bethlehem as you might recall from my Christmas Sunday morning address means house of bread and it was there ultimately that the Lord Jesus Christ who referred to himself as the bread of life was to be born. Now there are times in Old Testament histories when our Lord shows his displeasure on a small community of people by refraining to allow the rain to fall. If there's no rain there can be no harvest.

If there's no harvest there's no food. That was a condition in Bethlehem. It came to pass in the days of the judges that there was famine in Bethlehem and as a result a knock-on consequence Elimelech decides that he will leave home with his wife and two sickly boys and go to the land of Moab.

Now most Jewish commentators if you check the Jewish writers on scripture they're good ones to check they will infer from this that Elimelech had gone wrong. He shouldn't have gone to Moab. Moab was the land where Lot's descendants lived.

Lot who had been so rebellious and so sinful. Well Elimelech decides that he will go to the land of Moab. An unfortunate decision.

It came to pass that his wife and his children find themselves there. He didn't intend to stay for a long time or so the word of God implies. He went to sojourn there.

I think that's how the AB translates part of the second verse. They went to live there just for a while. Just while the famine was abating in Canaan and especially in Bethlehem.

You know sometimes the best thing to do with your problem is not to run away from it. Wait patiently before the Lord. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently before him.

I wonder if that's where Elimelech went wrong. Not waiting before the Lord. Wanting to leave his problems behind he discovered as a result even greater problems when he got into the land of Moab.

For he was to die verse three and not only but his two sons who had married Moabite women were also to die. Matthew Henry a great preacher from yesteryear says that it's an evidence of a distressing spirituality to be weary of the place in which God has set us and to be for leaving it immediately whenever we meet with any uneasiness or inconvenience in it. It is folly to think of escaping that cross which is being laid on our way we ought rather to take it up.

It is wisdom to make our boast of that which is for of that which is for it is seldom that changing our place is handling it or mending it. Right. It is seldom that changing our place is mending it.

But Elimelech and his family went to Moab last part of verse two and they lived there. Undoubtless when they originally arrived at that point that they felt like the old American settlers. Have you ever read the story of the of the settlement of the United States of America? It's a fascinating piece of history and on one occasion some settlers got to a country that seemed so very beautiful.

Their immediate reaction was as they thought that there they would rest forever. Their immediate reaction was to utter the one word Alabama. Here I rest.

I wonder if that's what Elimelech in effect did. He got to Moab with his wife and his children. Alabama.

Here I rest. But he couldn't rest there. His circumstances can't improve themselves there and neither can your circumstances nor my circumstances ever be improved if we are away from the place where God wants us to be.

There is only one Alabama. Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will grant rest for your soul. You see it's in the purposes of God.

Wherever geographically you might be located it's within the purposes of God that you will find rest. And not trying somehow with human ingenuity to engineer yourself out of where God has placed you. So I argue that here in our opening verses we have the tragedy of an unfortunate decision.

Naomi was to endure what she sought to escape. She loses her husband and her two sons. She'd rather have been a beggar in Canaan with the lads and her husband than to have gone through the bereavement in Moab.

Not enjoyment and not sorrow is our destined ordered way but to act that each tomorrow finds us further on the way. Naomi would rather have been further on the way in the purposes of God with the difficulties at Bethlehem than in the bereavement that she discovered in Moab. An unwise decision.

But then let's move on because we come in verse six to what I've called an a timely revision. A timely revision. When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi prepares to return.

Isn't it a remarkable mercy of God that sometimes when you're very perplexed and when you don't deserve it, he does allow his word to come to you. Sometimes it comes in the most unusual way. Here is Peter, for example, who has forsaken the Lord.

Peter who's denied the Lord and the cot starts to crow and within the crowing of the cot there's the voice of the Lord. He always sends his word to his people even if they're in a mess as a result of their own misdemeanors. Joseph gets a word to the old man Jacob.

Joseph in Egypt, Jacob heartbroken in Canaan. But the word comes. Such is the mercy of God.

And so Naomi, she hears in her bereaved condition that things have changed in Bethlehem. The Lord causes a word to come to her in regard to the fresh provision that has been made for his people. So what does she do? Oh, she's like the old testament counterpart of the prodigal.

She determines that she'll arise. There's bread. Bread in her hometown.

Bread sufficient and to spare. So she makes preparation and she informs her daughters-in-law of what her plans are. To return home from more.

The latter part of verse 6. And when her two daughters-in-law understand what mum is going to do, they decide that they'll set out and join her. Now that indicates something of the closeness of that family relationship. Not every daughter-in-law gets on with mother-in-law.

Not so? I thank God for a good mother-in-law. I get on with her very well indeed. Mind you, we are 6,000 miles away most of the time, but she really is a very gracious lady.

Well, here is Naomi showing something of the intimacy of that family union in as much as the two young widows want to join her and return with her to Bethlehem. But of course, Naomi is very concerned. Verse 8. If they go back with her, it reduces their marriage chances.

According to Jewish law, if Naomi had had further children, then those children could have married these daughters. But she's an old woman. And even if there was a possibility of her marrying and having more children, it would take so long for these children to be of marriageable age and to offer their companionship for these two bereaved daughters-in-law.

So she tells them to stay, in effect, where they are. And it's a lovely piece of farewell that she offers, isn't it? Look there in the heart of verse 8. Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to your dead aunt and me.

May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband. Here's a benediction. May God deal graciously with you.

Here's a prayer. Do you offer things like that, my friend, in your family circle to your loved ones? Do you wish them God's blessing? Do you offer them a prayer? No wonder Ruth will ultimately cling to Naomi. Somebody has said that if we had more Naomis in the church, acting in the way that she did, we would win more Ruth from the world.

Isn't that rather nice? If we had more people with a Naomi type of character, we would win more Ruth. Here's a woman with a great concern for her two daughters-in-law. Earlier on, her husband made the fatal decision, as far as his lads were concerned, to settle in Moab.

As the years pass, Naomi makes the wise decision which will bring great blessing for one of her daughters-in-law to return to Bethlehem. And as a result of the kindness of Naomi, one of the daughters, Ruth, determines that she cannot go back to her own country, even though she has been so advised she will stay around with Naomi. And so you get one of the most choice pieces of scripture as Ruth tells Naomi that she's going to stay with her.

Verse 16, Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.

Your people will be my people. Your God, my God. 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. She's going to cling to her mum-in-law.

In the same way as scripture indicates that a man will leave his parents and cling to his wife, so Ruth will cling to Naomi. Do you ever thought that here in the Old Testament is a choice illustration of that sort of loyalty that the Lord Jesus wants from you and from me? You see, in one sense, Ophir and Ruth were brought to a critical point of choice, like we are. The option for the latter was to go with Naomi or return home.

You have a choice, I have a choice. Here is our Lord Jesus and his great and his glorious gospel. And on one occasion, you remember, he comes to the disciples as thousands of his followers, or at least hundreds of what seemed to be followers, melt away into the distance.

And Jesus says to Peter and to the rest, will you also go away? And Peter says in words that resemble Ruth's response to Naomi, to whom should we go? You see, life without you is utterly unacceptable. This is basically what Ruth is saying to Naomi, isn't it? And this is what God is asking of you and me. The loyalty that we have to the extent that no other option really is taken into consideration, because the future is unpalatable unless God is in it.

Do you feel that? We're still relatively at the beginning of this new year. Could you say that in the weeks and the months to come, Lord, if you're not there, I don't want to go on. I can't move on in my life unless you are present.

In this opening chapter, there was an unwise decision taken by a Jewish man. Let's not deal too ungraciously, too unkindly with him. His lads, if the Hebrew indicates accurately their physical condition, it seems to suggest that his boys were sickly.

Maybe he felt as a father, and sometimes our best decisions taken in the wisest interests proved to be faulty. Faulty. Maybe he thought it was the best thing for him to take them to Moab to escape the ravages of the famine in Bethlehem.

But it worked out so very, very badly. An unwise decision. But here is Naomi, and there's a timely revision in what she's going to do.

And she will bless one of her daughters-in-law as a result, who will not leave her. Let's move on to the latter part of our chapter. Here is what I've called a difficult recognition.

Look at verse 19. You got the picture? These two women, probably at the same time in history as Eli was around in Jerusalem, about the same time as These two women went back to Bethlehem. And when they arrived, latter part of the middle of verse 19, when they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them.

The women felt incidentally the men would have been out in the fields. The harvest, you remember, is now okay because the famine's been lifted. And the women say, can this be Naomi? We don't really recognize her.

You see, the time that she went to sojourn, it was only going to be a short time. That was originally a Limaletz indication. This is where I think he was unwise, you see, as a father.

Even if he'd gone for a little while, it wouldn't have been so bad, but he stayed for years. Ten years, a decade elapsed, and the woman comes back, and she's aged so much. Can this be Naomi? It doesn't really look much like her.

Why the change? Shakespeare perhaps could have supplied the answer to the question. Grief has changed me, and careful hours with time's deformed hand hath written strange defeatures on my face. It's an interesting archaic word, isn't it? Defeatures.

A face lined with the sorrow of those years, with the loss of a Limaletz, the loss of her two boys. You can't go through that sort of agony, and it not inscribe itself with furrows upon your face, with a haunting look in your eyes. Can this be Naomi? There ever been a time in your life when you've looked in the spiritual mirror? Not so much the literal one, I'm not talking about aging now physically, but you've looked at yourself as what you are now, compared with what you used to be.

And it's rather a cutting question that comes into your mind. Is this Naomi? Once I used to be so full of faith. Once I used to be so buoyed up with expectancy.

Well, I was there, you know, I went to university, I was there in the Christian Union, and I was really holding my own as a Christian. We didn't have much money when we first got married. It was very difficult, but our marriage was a happy one.

And we made our way to the house of God. We had our family prayers. I was true to my Bible, and in the way that I conducted my affairs.

But you see, a decade's gone by. Or maybe for one or two of you, it's a couple of decades. And you look in the spiritual mirror.

Is this Naomi? What strange defeatures have etched themselves across your face? Why are they there? Why this advanced stage of spiritual deterioration? What is it, my friend, that causes you to advance in a negative sense? When the Bible seems to indicate that though physically we deteriorate, spiritually our inward man is transformed day by day. Now, isn't that what Paul's saying when he writes to the Corinthians? Then why isn't that true? This strange defeaturing of your spirit. Why is it? I feel that it's a very interesting thing in Scripture that very often when God is dealing with someone who's at crisis point, he brings them back to the beginning.

To that moment, and sometimes it's to that geographical place where things started to go wrong. That's the reason why Naomi's back in Bethlehem, you see. It was at Bethlehem that the unwisdom was accepted on the part of Elimelech with his departure and that of his wife to Moab.

And so God brings her back to the very place where she started spiritually to deteriorate. You see, it's part and parcel of what I refer to as his strange mercy. He still has his hand upon Naomi.

He still lives, loves Naomi. He still has remarkable purposes in store for Naomi. But before any of that can be dealt with, he has to bring her back to show her what's gone wrong in her life.

And so she says to these folk who say, can this be Naomi? Don't call me Naomi anymore. Naomi means pleasant. Call me Mara, for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me.

I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Look, my friend, even if you're empty spiritually at this moment, at least latch on to this point, the Lord brought you back. See, you wouldn't have come back yourself.

You wouldn't even be prepared to admit that there are spiritual deficiencies in your life if God was not dealing with you in a sensitive fashion. He wants you to know what you're like. He wants me to know what I am like.

And so these people, they say to her, can this be Naomi? No, she says, not really, not the Naomi that was. I'm really very bitter. I'm bitter because of what God has done.

Call me Mara. Don't call me pleasant. Don't call me Naomi.

I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. He brought her back to the place where all went wrong. He brought her back to express the grudge that she had against Him.

Do you have a grudge against God? Why did you let this happen? I've never really forgiven you. You know, people sometimes are like that. They don't understand the strange providences of God.

They look at things from a human viewpoint. The incredible thing is the vastness of the patience of God who deals with Naomi today as He dealt with Naomi in her day, as we will see in weeks that are yet to come. God brings her back to the point where He can deal with her afresh, the point where things began to go wrong in the first instance.

The Lord has affected me. The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. No, Naomi, you've got it wrong, you see.

God has got great concerns for you. He's still got great programs for you in store in the future. You've got alongside you a woman who has Gentile blood.

Ultimately, she will marry one of your kinsmen. As a result of that marriage, Jesse will be born. As a result of Jesse's birth, David will be born.

As a result of David's birth, centuries hence, the Christ of God will be born. And Almighty God, whom you are accusing of dealing in such a slap-happy way with you, is taking from your tragedy the possibility of bringing into Israel the Gentile blood of Ruth. So that Gentile blood will be within the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as Jewish blood.

And the blood that he shall shed on Calvary's cross will atone for the sins of both Jew and Gentile. Isn't it wonderful, the purposes of God? I don't want to read too much into this, but I find the fact that God elects a Moabitess woman, and through the tragedy of Naomi, brings her into the pedigree that shall ultimately cause the Lord Jesus Christ to be born into this world. Naomi, far from God dealing in an insensitive fashion, he is going to make your life immortalized through one of your offspring.

God dealt with Naomi in a very wonderful way, even though she didn't appreciate it fully at the beginning. He's a God who often employs strange mercies. If he's done so in your life, then accept the mercy that he has brought, and make a corrective in areas where perchance, like Naomi, like Elimelech, you have gone wrong.