Introduction
We’re beginning a series of six talks on the Book of
Ruth this morning that will take us through to the end of August.
The German poet Goethe called Ruth “the loveliest
complete work on a small scale ever written.” And I think I would agree with
him.
Ruth is one of just two books in the Bible that are
named after women, the other one being Esther. Both are at least partly set in
a foreign land, both involve a crisis, both carry the threat of death, and both
are romances, which both end happily ever after. Apart from that, they’re
totally different...
As we know, romances don’t always end well.
Apparently on Twitter this week someone said, “I'm tweeting to say I sent you
an email explaining my voicemail about a note I left saying I'm leaving you
because we don't talk anymore.”
Romances can be stressful for parents. The comedian
John Bishop said recently, “Watching your daughter being collected on her first
date feels like handing over a million pound Stradivarius to a gorilla.”
Background
The story of Ruth begins by setting out the
historical context. It was, says v1, “in the days when the Judges ruled” which
was a period of time between about 1,200BC to 1,000BC.
If you have your Bible open at Ruth 1, you can just glance
over at the previous page and see that the very last verse of Judges gives you
a concise summary of what it was like to live at that time; “In those days” it
says, “Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”
They did. It was a dark and difficult time. It was
marked by national spiritual drift, with one crisis after another. It was a godless
time. It was a time of corruption, and spiralling violence and sexual
promiscuity. People didn’t care very much at all about looking to see what God wants.
They just went around doing whatever they pleased.
It was a time in so many ways like our own.
Paradox
1: Famine in the House of Bread
And v1 tells us that at one particular point in the
period of the Judges the land was struck by famine. Food became scarce. Prices
shot up. It became difficult even to put daily bread on the table.
Was it just that there happened to be a couple of
bad harvests? Was it simply “one of those things”? Or was this a sign of God’s discipline?
Remember what God had said in Deuteronomy 28 when he set out for Israel the
terms and conditions for dwelling in the land he gave them. He said; “If you do
not fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow his commandments… you
will sow much seed in the land but you will harvest little.”
There’s no question in my mind that this was a small
famine sent by God to correct his wayward people and bring them back to their
senses.
Here’s a multiple choice question for you: When life
takes a bad turn do you: a) phone a friend and talk it through
b) lay the situation before God and ask him to step
in
c) concoct a man-made solution and walk away
A certain man from Bethlehem, we read, goes for
option c). He decides to take his wife and two children and leave for a
neighbouring land. Notice that there is no trace of him seeking God or praying
for provision.
There are three paradoxes in the first five verses of
this book and the first one is this: Bethlehem is surrounded by fertile wheat
and barley fields. It’s a place of agricultural abundance. Bethlehem actually means
‘house of bread’ but people were starving to death there. Moab is only about 50
miles away; it’s an arid, barren country the other side of the Dead Sea, but
everything seems to have been perfectly well there.
Why did Elimelek take his family off to, of all
places, Moab? This was a nation born
in incest (you can read about that in Genesis 19) and it had a reputation for depravity.
They worshiped a fertility god called Chemosh and even sacrificed children to
him. At this time the Moabites were enemies of Israel and they often raided the
land and plundered it. They were neighbours from hell. Why would you want to
move your family there?
Because in those days, Israel had no king; everyone
did as they saw fit. And when you do as you see fit, without looking to God,
you tend to come up with bad ideas.
Paradox
2: My God is King but He Isn’t
Here’s the second paradox. Elimelek means ‘My God is
King’. But he acts like he is king. There
is no hint of living by faith, or seeking God’s face, or crying out for deliverance.
Elimelek doesn’t even think about relying on God. He devises a human solution
to his immediate problem.
We understand, don’t we? This is so human. Who
hasn’t gone down this road before? With our prayer tank empty, leaving us running
on fumes, we think we can manage fine by ourselves. Elimelek looks for a human
answer to his family’s difficulties but it just leads him, literally, to a
dead-end.
“Trust in the Lord”, says Proverbs 3.6, “with your
whole heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all
your ways, and he will your paths straight.”
But Elimelek and Naomi do lean only on their own
understanding. They think they can straighten their path by themselves.
So they emigrate with their two boys to Moab. They sever
their ties with God’s people and they desert the land of milk and honey that
God had promised them, thinking they can do better elsewhere.
But listen, it’s not by leaving God’s people and turning
your back on the arena of his blessing that problems vanish. That makes it worse.
Let me ask you a direct question. Are you fed up
being in the place that God has placed you? Do you have the feeling that,
spiritually and emotionally, you haven’t got enough to feed you and sustain
you? Are you disappointed, or dissatisfied? Are you tempted to look for greener
grass elsewhere, to wander away from his call on your life?
The Bible scholar Matthew Henry says, “It is evidence
of a discontented, distrustful, unstable spirit, 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.”
I have known many Christians shaken in their faith by
adversity. Most stay on track and come through it stronger. They look for
opportunities to pray with others, they don’t quit God’s house, they make sure
they seek out and enjoy quality time with other believers. They make sure their
exhausted souls are replenished with grace.
But tragically others drift away. Like Elimelek and
Naomi, they try to manage on their own, but they end up wandering off from
God’s presence and isolate themselves from the community of his people.
Let me tell you about a disillusioned, tired and
burned out missionary who walked into a church about 15 years ago. He didn’t
really want to be there. He didn’t care to get involved in a church like this
particular one, but he knew instinctively that it was not good to make a habit
of missing church so he turned up and sat at the back.
Against all expectations, the service did him a
power of good; it was really good preaching (also from Ruth incidentally) and
well-led sung worship. He had wanted to be anonymous, but he had been so
blessed he felt he really should say thank you on the way out.
Well, the service leader at the door got talking with
him for a few minutes, and the conversation finished like this; “You know,
we’re looking for someone exactly like you for a new ministry post starting in
three weeks’ time. Why don’t you send us your CV?” The church was St Michael’s
Paris, the burned out missionary was me and needless to say, I did join their
ministry team and had many happy, fruitful years there.
And I learned something that day. When everything
seems to be against you, and when God seems distant and silent, and when you’re
discouraged and demotivated, put yourself in the place where God is most likely
to bless you; a church, in his presence, under his word, and among his people.
So Elimelek means “God is King” but he was king of
his own life. Naomi means “pleasant or sweet.” And it seems she was.
Mahlon and Kilion, their two sons, have the weirdest
names. Their names mean “Sickly” and “Poorly.” It’s like me introducing you to
my two boys, Birdflu and Salmonella. They’ve got a sister on the way, we’re
thinking of calling her Ebola.
You might like
the names Mahlon and Kilion. You might think they sound cool. But they’re not
good names. Maybe think of something else if you’re expecting a baby or getting
a pet.
Paradox
3: They Move to Avoid Death and Die
And here’s the third paradox. Elimelek takes his
family into Moab as a strategy to escape death and what happens? He dies.
Notice it doesn’t say how he dies. It doesn’t tell you if he had a heart attack or got
cancer or fell off a roof, or got run over. It just says that he died. No one will
ever know how or why.
This is the one question we usually ask when someone
dies isn’t it? “Why?” We always want to know why but we don’t always get to find out. There are mysteries in God
we will never plumb the depths of. There are puzzles and riddles in life we
will never solve. 1 Corinthians 13 says “We know in part.” One day, in
eternity, we will understand fully. Deuteronomy 29.29 says, “The secret things
belong to the Lord.” We all live with questions that we will take to the grave unanswered.
But what I do know is that these kinds of sorrows
are often crossroads in our lives which either drive us to God or lure us away
from him. John Ortberg says that if you ask atheists why they don’t believe in
God, the number one reason will be suffering. But if you ask people who do believe
in God when were the times they grew most spiritually, the number one answer
will be when I came through a period of suffering.
Horatio Spafford lived in Chicago at the end of the
19th Century. He invested most of his money in property. He had a
son and four daughters. His son died of a fever in 1870. Then lost everything
he had in the Great Fire of Chicago the following year, 1871. It destroyed his
home. They had no house insurance and he lost everything he owned.
Two years later, he put his wife and their four remaining
children on a French ocean liner called Ville du Havre for England
while he stayed behind briefly delayed by pressing business. Just a few days after
the ship left dock, on November 22, it collided with the English ship Lochearn and
sank in just twelve minutes. All four of their daughters drowned. He received a
telegramme from his wife: “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
He quickly boarded the next ship to England, and as
it passed over the very same place in the Atlantic Ocean where his beautiful
girls had perished, he wrote down some words which became a famous old hymn: “When
peace, like a river attends my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever
my lot, you have taught me to say it is well, it is well with my soul.”
Romans 8 talks about groaning and grieving. This is
the human condition. We suffer loss and affliction. We groan and we grieve. But
it says that both will be surpassed and God will replace them with gladness and
glory. And it says that what is to come, for those who love the Lord, will far,
far outweigh the current suffering. In fact, in Romans 8.17-30, Paul mentions
suffering twice, sighing three times, but glory four times.
And if you today are stuck
in the valley of the shadow of death – and I know some of you are – honestly, you
may never know why your loved one died instead of being healed. But as Martyn
Lloyd-Jones used to say, “Don’t let the things you don’t know spoil the things
you do know.”
What you do
know is that God is always good, your Father is eternally for you, Jesus is
Lord, the Holy Spirit is your comforter, there is nothing that can separate you
from his love, the devil is under Jesus’ feet, he’s soon going to be under ours
too, the Bible is true, death has lost its sting, Christ has overcome, his yoke
is easy and his burden is light and grace is sufficient for you.
Don’t let the things you
don’t know spoil the things you do know.
Grief
Upon Grief
For Naomi, it’s not over. In v4 her sons marry
outside the people of God. That was not totally forbidden like intermarrying with
Canaanites was, but it was never God’s ideal. It was unwise and ill advised,
like marrying unbelievers is for Christians. But Mahlon and Kilion got absorbed
into the pagan culture around them. Everyone did as they saw fit. They let go
of their God, who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, to adopt the idols
of Moab.
For any Christian parent, it is heart-breaking to
watch your children drift away from the Lord. Never give up. Keep praying for
them. The majority of people I have seen come to faith at Alpha turned out to
have had some kind of Christian experience or acquaintance in the past. Never
underestimate the awesome power of a praying parent who never gives up.
In v5 it’s rock bottom. The two sons die too. And Naomi
is bereft.
I don’t believe there is any human experience more upsetting
than having to bury your own children. I’ve seen the pain on parents’ faces as
they watch a small coffin lower down into a grave. It haunts you for months.
Her husband was her breadwinner and he’s dead. Her
sons would have assumed the role of providing for her instead. They’re dead
too. She is destitute and penniless. She’s now too old to have more children
who could, one day, look after her. Her parents are probably dead as well,
either from old age or in the famine. There’s no social provision for childless
widows - at all. She has no income, no savings, and no pension. And she’s
stranded in a foreign country.
And all because she and her husband just did as they
saw fit, and left the Promised Land. Now she has no one from her own country or
her own faith to meet with, to talk to, to pray with, or to minister to her.
Ending
We’ll pick up the story next week – I’m glad to say
it gets a bit brighter as it goes on.
But let me leave you with some words another man
from Bethlehem, one who never did as he saw fit but only what he saw his heavenly Father doing, one who said his food was to do the will of God, one who knew grief more than anyone else, a man of sorrows familiar
with suffering, one whose heart went out to a bereft widow about to bury her son and who said, "Don't cry" and then raised him to life, one who overcame death for good and will finally put an end to it - something he might say to you this morning. Why don’t you open up your heart
to receive?
Jesus would say to you today:
If you never felt pain, how would you know that I am
a Healer?
If you never felt sadness, how would you know that I
am a Consoler?
If you never were broken, how would you know that I
can make you whole?
If you never suffered, how would you know what I
went through for you?
Let’s pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 24 July 2016
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