Ruth chapter 1. 'Call me bitter!'

Ruth is one of the best short stories ever written. It has believable characters, tragedy, drama, suspense, and romance. It's a story you should read in one sitting, so if you want to get the most out of it, go home today and read the whole four chapters.

A lovely story, and a joy to read, but why is it in the bible? Well, there are several reasons. It describes ordinary life in Israel during the time of the judges. It tells about the ancestors of king David. But most of all, it shows practical, godly love amongst God's covenant people. It shows us God's undeserved love and kindness and his faithfulness to the covenant he made with his people. His concern for ordinary believing women. It shows us God is in control, even of the bitter circumstances of life. God does visit his people. And it shows his people responding to that love by loving one another in the same way.

We turn now to verse one. "In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land..." There's a lot of history behind that opening. The story is set in that wild and lawless time covered by the book of Judges. This was the period of several centuries which followed the exodus from Egypt. The events of Ruth happen near the start of this time. Around 1250 BC, give or take a century.

It was a dark time in Israel's history. After the triumphal entry into the land, the twelve tribes settled down and immediately began to do what the Lord warned them they would do if they forgot his covenant. Judges 2:12 says, "they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress."

Arameans from the North, Philistines and Sidonians from the West, Ammonites and Moabites from the East, Midianites, Amalekites, and Egyptians from the South, and various others within Palestine, all oppressed Israel during this time. There was ironic justice in this, because Israel had worshipped the gods of every one of these nations. But each time, God was so patient and forgiving. Israel cried out to him, and he sent saviours, called judges, mighty warriors to free them from their enemies. People like Samson, and Gideon. One was a woman, Deborah.

But each time God saved them, they would return to their evil ways, and God would send more distress on them. It was possibly during one of these times of distress that Elimelech and his family left Israel for neighbouring Moab. Perhaps the famine was caused by one of the many wars of this time.

Ruth is a real contrast with the book of Judges. Judges is about Israel's failure to live as God's people. Ruth is about right relationships under God's loving rule. The covenant is the promise he made to Israel, that he would be their God and they would be his people. He promised to bless them and show them his lovingkindness and faithfulness. In response to this unearned and undeserved mercy and blessing, they were to treat each other the same way. And that's what Ruth is all about. Everyone is blessing everyone else in the story with kindness and mercy. The word in Hebrew is hesed, a very special word. Usually translated lovingkindness, or faithfulness, it has the idea of friendship, loyalty, blessing and love. It is most used to describe God's covenant love. Here in Ruth, everyone is showing hesed to each other. This is in stark contrast to the way most of Israel were acting at the time. If you turn back 3 pages to Judges 19, you'll see what I mean. Judges is full of awful stories about attrocities every bit as bad as what's happening in Bosnia. In fact that's not a bad comparison. Israel at the time of Ruth was a lawless, bloodthirsty land. When we realise that, we see how different Naomi and Ruth are, and also Boaz whom we meet in chapter 2.

Well, Elimelech and his family were ordinary people from Bethlehem in Judah. This Bethlehem, though an insignificant town, was to play a vital role in the history of salvation. It was there two centuries later, that David, the greatest king of Israel, was born. It was there that the prophet Samuel anointed David as king. And yes, it was the same Bethlehem in which great David's greater son, Jesus the Messiah, would be born.

Elimelech leaves Israel for Moab. Let me tell you a bit about Moab.

Moab was a close neighbour of Israel. Right from its first mention, the bible associates Moab with immorality. Genesis tells us Moab was the son of an incestuous union between Lot and his daughter. Moab settled on the plateau to the East of Palestine, and his descendants became a nation. When Israel came up out of Egypt, a century or so before the time of Ruth, God told them not to attack Moab, but to leave them alone and pass them by. But Moab feared Israel, so the king of Moab got Balaam, a pagan prophet, to pronounce a curse on them. But God, who is in control even of pagan prophets, wouldn't let Balaam pronounce a curse, but made him bless Israel instead. Shortly after this, Numbers tells us that Israelite men engaged in sexual immorality with Moabite women, and worshipped Chemosh their God. Because of this, the law of Moses banned any Moabite from entering the worshipping assembly of Israel.

Judges tells us also that Moab oppressed Israel for 18 years at the beginning of the period of the judges. God sent the judge Ehud, who killed the king of Moab, led Israel in revolt against them and made them subject to Israel. It may have been during the 80 years of peace with Moab that followed, that the events of Ruth take place.

Well, what have we learnt from our Moabite history lesson? The main thing is this. Moab was always a nation that caused Israel trouble, that led her astray, and was often her bitter enemy, opposed to God and His purposes. For Elimelech to go there to escape famine in Israel may have been a sign of lack of faith in the Lord and disobedience to his covenant. For Mahlon and Chilion to marry Moabite women was certainly very dubious behaviour considering Israel's past dealings with Moabite women who led them to worship Chemosh, just two or three generations before.

Well, I've spent a long time on verses one and two, but don't worry, I won't spend as long on the rest! In verses 3 to 5 tragedy strikes. First Elimelech, then his sons Mahlon and Chilion, die in the land of Moab, leaving Naomi and her Moabite daughters-in-law as widows. Naomi hears from Israel that God has visited his people with blessing, and the famine is over. There is nothing left for her in Moab, so she decides to go back. She herself is too old for marriage, but Ruth and Orpah could still find husbands, so she urges them to stay.

I don't want to say much about Orpah, except that we mustn't judge her too harshly for going back. Both daughters initially reject Naomi's suggestion that they should leave her. In verse ten they say "We will go back with YOU to your people." It's the older woman's wisdom which persuades Orpah. We ought not to overlook the fact that she acts in submissive obedience to her mother-in-law.

However, sometimes there is a loyalty and a love that goes beyond obedience. Ruth was not so easily put off. Orpah heard the voice of reason. But Ruth hears the voice of faith. Ruth's declaration of allegiance to Naomi is also a declaration for Yahweh, the God of Naomi. In those famous words, often quoted out of context at weddings, she says, "Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and 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." This last sentence is probably mistranslated. The Hebrew is obscure, but what she probably says is not "if anything but death separates us," but "if EVEN death separates you and me." She wants even to be buried with Naomi. This is an eternal friendship she has in mind. She gives up her country and kin, and any chance of marriage and children, so that she can be with Naomi and her people and her God forever.

Here we see Ruth's character first displayed. Ruth's name probably means a female companion, a good friend. Her name is very apt as the title for the book, because the book is very much about faithful companionship. But the story is really not Ruth's story - it is the story of Naomi. That's why we called this series "From bitterness to blessing," because that's Naomi's experience. Names are important in Ruth. Naomi's name means pleasant. It's a nice name. Too nice, Naomi decides for her present circumstances, and when the women of Bethlehem come out to meet her as she returns after ten disastrous years, she changes it to Mara - bitter. Each chapter in Ruth begins and ends in the same place, with some kind of journey or progression in between that changes things. Chapter one begins and ends in Bethlehem. It begins with a family and hopes for the future. As Naomi says, she went out full. But it ends back in Bethlehem empty. No husband, no sons, no hope for the future. The only thing to mitigate Naomi's circumstances is that she has Ruth to share her bitterness.

But Naomi, despite her bitterness, comes through in this chapter as a woman of deep faith, a faith that obviously impressed her daughter-in-law Ruth. We see it in Naomi's view of the God of Israel. Naomi sees clearly that God is not like the false Gods of other nations. Their power did not extend beyond their own backyard. Yahweh is different. She says to her daughters in 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 and to me. May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband." She doesn't say, may Chemosh the god of Moab bless you. She knows there is but one God, whose power extends over all lands. And in our pluralistic society, where there are many gods and lords worshipped, we too need to remember that.

Naomi is faithful, even in bitter times. And it is especially bitter for Naomi, who has lost not just a husband, like Ruth and Orpah, but two sons as well. Unlike them, she is too old to remarry, and there is nothing left for her. But there is another reason. She says in verse 13, "It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord's hand has gone out against me."

Naomi seems to believe that God has disciplined her because of their faithlessness in leaving Israel for a pagan land when things got tough. She says in verses 20 & 21, "the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full but the Lord has brought me back empty. The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune on me."

Whether this misfortune really was a direct result of their disobedience or not, the author doesn't say. But what is clear is that Naomi sees it as coming from the Lord, who is Shaddai, the Almighty, the God whose power is irresistible. Naomi's God is not just a Santa Claus god who sits there and doles out nice things. If you have such a view of God, your faith dies a natural death the first time disaster strikes you. I want to warn you against an unbiblical teaching which has troubled Christians in recent years. It says that God promises only blessings, and that He will always protect us from sickness and disaster and loss. But that kind of god is not Yahweh, the Lord Almighty. That's why Naomi's faith in Him is unshaken. Naomi may well say as Job said, "Shall we accept good things from the Lord and not bad things also?" Naomi has a high view of God's sovereign control of events. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the God who is all powerful. The apostle Paul says the same thing in an even stronger way. He says, "In ALL THINGS, (that is, good or bad), in all things, God works together for our good."

There may be a warning here for us, too, in Naomi's words. As she laments, she went away from Israel full, and came back empty. The church of Jesus Christ is the new Israel, and we are part of the body of Christ through faith in him. But if we desert God's people and try to go it alone, or if we find the world's answers to our problems more attractive than God's answers, or if we trust in the solutions of our own reason, or the security of worldly wealth, or whatever gods our own society worships, and begin to wander from the Lord, then we will find ourselves spiritually empty. Sadly, it's often only when we reach rock bottom, like Naomi did, that we think of coming back.

Conclusion

What else do we learn from chapter one of Ruth? Well some things we will only see when we get to the end of the story, and I'll have more to say about them when I preach on chapter four in three weeks time. But some things are clear even at the start of the story.

God cares about the little person. God cares about women. God cares about the alien, the foreigner, the person who is destitute and powerless. The heroes of Ruth are not prophets, priests and kings. Ruth is written very much from the point of view of the ordinary believer, and of women especially.

The faith of these women, Naomi and Ruth, teaches us about the God in whom they trust. Does your faith teach those who observe you, about the one you claim to trust? Naomi worshipped the Lord, the God she calls Almighty. The God who was in control of both blessing and bitterness. Her distress, like that of Job, does not lead her to curse God. No matter what, she knows that He is in the right.

Ruth saw the faith that Naomi had, and saw the immense superiority of Yahweh over the false god of Moab, Chemosh. Yahweh is Shaddai, Almighty. There is no situation or circumstance that is beyond his control, and he works all things to the good of those who love him. Ruth gave up everthing of her past life. Her god, her people, her land. And she joined herself to the Lord. The rest of the story will show the truth of the words of our Lord Jesus when He said, "Truly I say to you, there is noone who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time, and in the age to come, eternal life."

We see the lovingkindness, the hesed of God in the way his people bless each other. Ruth and Naomi's friendship is based on a lovingkindness that is only possible for those who know the lovingkindness of God. We know that lovingkindness, that covenant blessing, only through faith in the one who died for us, Jesus Christ, the one who this story is really about in the end, as we shall see when we get to the last chapter.

You may be like Naomi, who had been away from Israel and needed to return. Or you may be like Ruth and need to be converted for the first time. Either way, God will always accept those who turn to him. Ruth and Naomi turned to Him, and from this point on, the story is one of God's unfolding plan to bless them. God is a God who delights to bless His people. Do you believe that?