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When we don’t feel satisfied in the Christian life, the pull of the world is very strong. But in Ruth chapter 1 we see that turning away from the Lord is a disaster because the world not only fails to bring the fulfilment it promises, but much worse, it leads to death.
In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. 10 And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, 13 would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” 14 Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
15 And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return 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. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 18 And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.
19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” 20 She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”
22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
This transcript has been automatically generated
Ruth chapter 1.
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his 2 sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his 2 sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.
But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her 2 sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of one was Orpah, and the name of the other, Ruth. They lived there about 10 years, and both Mahlon and Kilion died. So that the woman was left without her 2 sons and her husband.
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited His people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her 2 daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her 2 daughters-in-law, Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband.
Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, No, We will return with you to your people. But Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?
Turn back, my daughters. Go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should— say, I have hope— even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would she therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.
Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
And she said, See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, Do not urge me to leave you, to return 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 will I be buried.
May the Lord do so to me and more also, if anything but death parts me from you. And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, Is this Naomi?
She said to them, Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Lord, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, with her.
The country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Now let me tell you about Ethan. That’s not his real name. None of the people that I talk about from the pulpit I will use their real names for. But Ethan, after being made redundant, was offered a job overseas in a country where openly admitting to being a follower of Jesus was illegal. A country where there were very few Christians and no churches that I knew of.
Not that that doesn’t mean there weren’t any churches, but they just weren’t known of. But the job was fabulously well paid, and so Ethan took the job because, in his words, I’ll be able to provide for my family. And look, that’s not a bad thing to want to do, is it? A number of Ethan’s friends asked him how he was going to keep going as a Christian. They asked him to think about where he and his family would find Christian fellowship.
But in the circumstances, Ethan thought that going abroad would be a good move for him and for his family. Now as we open the book of Ruth, we meet a family who made a move that was not so dissimilar to that of Ethan and his family. And we come to the first point on the handout, the valley of doubt. Before we meet the family in question, we are told the situation in Judah at the time. And it was a most troubled time in Israel’s history.
The story is set in verse 1, in the days when the judges ruled. And in those days, well, they were days of chaos. Just look back one page. You don’t even have to turn back a page. Just look back to the page before and the last verse of the book of Judges.
Judges 21:25, in those days, that is in the days of judges, in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. As you read the book of Judges, it’s clear that not everyone’s right— everyone did what was right in their own eyes— not everyone’s right was actually right. Indeed, some of the things we read in the book were very disturbing: disorder, civil war, and a most macabre incident in chapter 19 that reads like an X-rated horror movie. That said, just because there was no king in Israel, please don’t imagine that every night in Judah It was full of civil unrest, of rioting, looting, and mobs rampaging through the streets setting police vehicles on fire, as we have seen in parts of Britain this week following the appalling deaths of 3 little girls in Southport. And although that’s been happening in Britain, you know, in Britain there are still millions of people who want to do as they do what is right in their own eyes, who are decent citizens with a moral compass, who are trying to live a good and upright life, trying to make ends meet, provide for their family, keeping themselves to themselves, and living peaceful, quiet lives.
And that’s how it was in Judah. Yes, some terrible things happening, but other people just trying to live a good life. But here’s the thing: as a nation, the people were not living under God’s rule. Again, last line of the book of Judges: In the days of the judges Israel had no king. They had no earthly king.
Most significantly, they had rejected the Lord as king. And so in Judah in Ruth’s day, it was very much like Britain in our day. People doing what is right in their own eyes, not outright uncontrolled anarchy, but a world where God’s law and God’s ways were not paramount, often not even considered. That’s verse 1 of the book of Ruth, the days when the judges ruled. And in those days, verse 1, there was a famine in the land.
The times were hard in Judah. The shelves in the supermarkets were bare. Demand outstripped supply. Inflation was high and prices were rising. I imagine people relying on food banks because, well, your shekel just didn’t simply go as far as it used to.
Life was hard. And that was confusing because this famine was, verse 1, in the land, that is in the Promised Land, a land that has been described by the Lord himself as a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of prosperity, a land of plenty. And so to have a famine in the land just didn’t sit right; it was incongruous. And that point is made when the very next thing we read in verse 1 is that there was a man of Bethlehem. You see, Bethlehem means the house of food or bread.
And so do you see how this first verse is dripping with irony? First, because there is a famine in the land, the Promised Land of milk and honey. And second, because the town we are taken to is Bethlehem, the house of food, the last place you would expect to experience a famine.
Imagine driving on the main road into Bethlehem, a big screen greeting you, Welcome to Bethlehem, the breadbasket of Judah. And then looking out of the car windows and either side dry and brown fields, no crops, no signs of life. Pulling up at the gas station, filling up, walking into the shop to pay for your fuel, seeing the shelves empty. The breadbasket of Judah had become a bare bowl of emptiness. Bethlehem, the house of food, was a place of famine.
And this physical famine in the land was a picture of a greater famine in the land. There was a spiritual emptiness in Judah because they had no king. Largely, the nation had rejected the Lord as king. And so Christopher Ash, in this excellent little commentary, suggests that the physical famine, verse 1, introduces us to the motive of emptiness, which we’ll see later on at the end of the chapter and features right through this chapter. Christopher Ash writes, we begin with physically hungry men and women, and our feelings begin to meditate on hunger, want, and desire.
And as soon as our thoughts are directed towards that kind of deep, heartfelt spiritual hunger, then once again we are right back in our world. For here in the affluent West, where relatively few people know what it is to be physically hungry, many, dare I say most, feel acutely empty, longing for fulfilment and satisfaction. And it’s a yearning, that yearning for fulfilment and satisfaction, which affects every generation. The desperate fact is that the biggest killer of men and women under 35 in this country suicide. Many young people feel a sense of meaninglessness and emptiness.
It’s not just the young, many are hit by the proverbial midlife crisis, I’m told. I mean, I know nothing about it, I haven’t got there yet. The midlife crisis, you know, what are you laughing about? Anyway, midlife, the point when you either feel you’ve reached the level in your career that you always aimed for or you begin to realise your dreams are never going to be realised. If you’ve achieved, you get that empty so-what feeling.
I finally achieved what I wanted and so what? If you haven’t achieved, Well, you just begin to wonder if you ever will. And so you feel the frustration of it all. You’ve worked your socks off and still there’s that nagging feeling that you haven’t found what’s missing and maybe you never will. Young people feel it, people in middle life feel it, and old people feel that sense of emptiness and so-what-ness as well.
Old age, you wake up one day and you wonder, where did that go? Suddenly your life has passed you by. In terms of health and fitness, the best years of your life gone. And what do you have to look forward to now? Your social life regularly punctuated by days out at the crematorium to say goodbye to yet another friend who’s basically the same age as you.
Whatever age or stage of life, many people feel that sense of emptiness, that longing for fulfilment and satisfaction. But here’s the thing, as we read the first verse of the book of Ruth, We are introduced to a situation in Judah, yes, in Judah of all places, where the very people we would expect to be following the Lord and deeply fulfilled are actually doing their own thing and feeling painfully empty. And of course those things go hand in hand. Sideline the Lord, reject him as King, do your own thing, and of course you feel empty and dissatisfied and hopeless and directionless. Because as Augustine of Hippo said way back in the 4th century, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.
And here’s the very striking thing as we step into the book of Ruth. When Augustine said those words, he was talking about the need for us to come to genuine faith in Jesus Christ. The surprise in Ruth chapter 1 is that it is the very people of God who are feeling this emptiness because it’s the people of God who’ve turned away from the Lord. And this, I think, is where these opening verses of the book of Ruth have such bite and edge for us today. For what is true of God’s people back then in Judah is sadly true of many Christian believers today.
I think of Jenny who said to me, Paul, I just don’t feel satisfied. George, what’s the point of life? Kelly, I don’t know what I’m here for. And Lawrence who said, I always knew that marrying an unbeliever was not what the Lord wanted, but I thought marriage was where I would experience the satisfaction I just didn’t feel as a Christian.
Jenny George, Kelly Lawrence— all Christians when they said those things. And when as Christians we feel that something is missing, when as Christians we feel dissatisfied, then the magnetic pull to chase after the things of this world is incredibly strong. And that’s exactly how it was for an Israelite family, a family from Bethlehem. They discovered how powerful the pull of the world really is. And so verse 1, in the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the And a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his 2 sons.
The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his 2 sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab, and they remained there. These verses should really shock us, rock us to the core. A family from Judah Go to Moab.
It may mean little to us, but to the first readers it was as shocking as hearing a family from South Korea moving to North Korea, or a patriotic Ukrainian family going to live in Moscow, or during the Second World War, a French family with Jewish heritage looking for work in Nazi Germany. You see, the Moabites were enemies of God’s people. The Moabites had a history of hatred and hostility and hoodwinking the people of Judah. I put some references on the handout for you to look at.
Look up later. And if you read them, you will see that Moab was no friend of the Jews. But twice we are told this shocking news halfway through verse 1, a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his 2 sons. And in case we missed it, or in case we thought it must be a misprint, it is repeated in verse 2. And in verse 2, the man in question is named and, I suggest, shamed.
Verse 2, the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his 2 sons Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went to the country of Moab and remained there. Yes, it should shock us. Yes, it should rock us.
Most of all, it should sadden us. It’s not a good move. But when we do what is right in our own eyes, it might well seem to be the smart choice. Just put yourself in Elimelech’s shoes for a moment. The land is in the grip of an economic crisis.
There is a famine, a shortage of food, leaving some, I guess, literally starving. And Elimelech wants to care and provide for his family. And that is right, isn’t it? And there is an opportunity for a transfer to the office in Moab where there is no shortage of food. And in Elimelech’s day, with pretty much everyone in Judah doing what was right in their own eyes, it seemed right in Elimelech’s eyes to take his family to Moab and to a place where he could feed them and give them everything they deserved.
Not hard to make a case for Elimelech’s move. And not least of all, because I don’t suppose for one minute that all his motives were bad.
And that’s the thing. How often have you and I been tempted to do what is right in our own eyes? To put material provision of our family or a sense of satisfaction first and above the commands of the Lord? You see, Elimelech must have known It wasn’t right to move. Any self-respecting Jew knew they should stay in Judah.
I think of Ethan moving overseas where he could provide for his family— sounds wise. Lawrence marrying an unbeliever because he loved her and she would make him happy and fulfilled, wouldn’t she? It doesn’t have to be a career move or the desire for more money or a love interest. If we’re honest with ourselves, we all know that pull. I certainly do.
I am often tempted by the things of this world— not a temptation to go and live a wild and debauched life, but a belief that the world could give me so much joy and satisfaction that I don’t always feel as a Christian.
For Elimelech, he surely knew that the Lord would have him and his family dwell in the Promised Land, but right now it doesn’t feel like a place of promise. And there are opportunities in Moab. And so in his eyes it seemed like a good move, an attractive option, arguably the responsible action.
So end of verse 2, they went into the country of Moab and remained there. But verse 3, and it is a very big but, it is a devastating but, because they moved to what I’ve called, second on the handout, the Valley of Death.
So as we read on, the land of Moab, the land that appeared to offer so much more than the land of promise, the land of Moab turned out to be anything but a place of promise. End of verse 2: They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her 2 sons. These took Moabite wives. The name of one was Orpah, the name of the other Ruth.
They lived there about 10 years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died. So the woman was left without her 2 sons and her husband. In a devastating 3 verses, the land that promised life was actually a valley of death. A decade after they moved to Moab, Naomi is a childless widow in a foreign land, bereaved and destitute. And please, she was destitute.
We have to remember the culture that she was living in. Christopher Ash again explains this extraordinarily well, so I’ll quote from him. We need to understand how vital it was for a woman to be under the protection of a man, whether husband, father, or son, in those days and that culture. In our enlightened days, we think this is outrageous and we protest against it. In our culture, women as well as men have access to tertiary education, to professions, to good jobs, to their own pensions, to independent means of subsistence, and much more.
A woman without a husband or father may flourish in our country, but not in our culture but not in theirs. He continues, we need to set aside our prejudices or opinions about this and to acknowledge that that is the world in which they lived. We cannot understand this drama without this non-negotiable given of their world. A woman divided, devoid of the protection and provision of a man, was in deep distress. We may not like it, but that’s how it was.
So Naomi and her daughters-in-law were destitute. And that’s reflected in verse 5 where the storyteller doesn’t call her Naomi but describes her just as the woman. I mean, up until now we are happy to use her name but now she is just the woman because after everything that has happened to her, it’s as if she has become a nameless nobody. If she were to die now, she would be a Jane Doe and be buried in an unmarked grave. And so Moab, the alternative land of promise, had spectacularly failed to deliver.
It was a land of death and destitution. And that is what will happen when we do what is right in our own eyes, when we turn from the Lord and his land of promise and we seek prosperity and fulfilment in the world.
And let’s be honest, that is a temptation that comes to us. As I have already said, it comes to me often. It’s not easy following the Lord. And Christians, yes, Christians do feel empty at times. And in those times the world looks very attractive.
But here we see in the most devastating way that the, the promise that this world offers, the promise of a better life, does not end well. It may not end well in this life, it certainly won’t end well in the life to come.
Now look, there’ll be some here today, you are Christian but you don’t feel fulfilled in the Lord. And you are thinking about making a decision, big or small, that you think is going to bring you the happiness and fulfilment that you long for. And it might seem right in your own eyes. You might even be able to make it sound reasonable and even quite noble. I am simply wanting to provide for my family.
Now please, as you look at this family of believers and how it ended for them, please don’t go there. It will end in death— maybe not physical death but spiritual death. And for eternity, it’s not worth it.
And as I encourage you not to go there, if you’re on the verge of thinking of going there, there will be some here who will be saying, too late, Paul, I have already gone there. You have already made decisions, big or small, that are not in line with God’s Word and maybe you are feeling the impact of those decisions. Please don’t despair because there is always a chance to return. And that is precisely what we see in the verses that follow. And the 3rd point on the handout, the value of decision.
We are motoring now, we are getting through this handout fantastically. Verse 6, then Naomi arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her 2 daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to return to the land of Moab. Verses 6 to 22 are all about returning, going back, returning to the land of Judah and most importantly returning to the Lord. 12 times in 16 verses the verb to turn or to return is used and again you will see them on the handout so that you can look them up later.
Verse 6 tells us the precise moment when Naomi decided to return to Judah. Second half of verse 6, she was in the fields of Moab when she heard that the famine in Israel was over. Can you picture her?
This bereaved and destitute woman with her 2 bereaved and destitute daughters-in-law, scrabbling around in the fields of Moab for any scraps of food there might be. Now look, please, there is nothing romantic about them being in the fields. They weren’t on a pleasant afternoon stroll picking blackberries along the hedgerow in the beautiful rolling hills before going back home to make a delicious blackberry and apple pie and lashings of custard. No, no, no, no. They were like the poorest people on the planet today who live in slums on the margins of the world’s great urban conurbations, spending their days sifting through enormous rubbish dumps for anything they can find in order to make a few pence in order to have a morsel to eat.
That’s the daily struggle for Naomi in the fields with her 2 daughters-in-law, destitute in a foreign land. When she gets news from back home. End of verse 6, the Lord has visited his people and given them food. The famine is over. People in the land of promise are full and satisfied.
And so, verse 6, she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab. And end of verse 7, they went on their way to return to the land of Judah. And as they set out with 50 miles of rugged, steep terrain ahead of them, even harder than the marathon at the Olympics, At some point on the journey, in the middle of nowhere, Naomi stopped and, verse 8, said to her 2 daughters-in-law, go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.
They are on their way back to Judah and Naomi stops and thinks, what am I doing dragging these girls with me? And look in verse 8, it is clear Naomi really does want the best for her daughters-in-law. She wants them to know the blessing of the kindness of the Lord in their lives. Verse 8, may the Lord deal kindly with you. Verse 9, the Lord grant that you find rest.
And Naomi wants the Lord’s blessing to fall on her daughters-in-law, but Naomi is still doing what is right in her own eyes rather than doing what is right according to the Lord. See, Naomi is reasoning, the girls are Moabites. They belong in Moab. They understand the customs and traditions of Moab. Moab is where they will find husbands, verse 9, husbands who will be able to provide for them and lift them out of poverty.
Despite all that Naomi has experienced in Moab, she still reasons that Moab could be a place of rest and refuge. She still thinks that sending the girls back to Moab is a sensible thing to do. But that’s exactly what her husband Elimelech thought when he took the family to Moab in the first place, and we know how that ended.
We might say Naomi’s heart was in the right place, but, you know, she wanted to repay the kindness that her daughter-in-laws had shown her. But her heart might have been in one sense in the right place, but she was wrong. The loving kindness of the Lord will not be found in the world and in marrying unbelieving husbands, even if they do provide handsomely for their wives and are great dads and work hard and love their children. The loving kindness of the Lord comes through following the Lord and being with his people.
And so halfway through verse 9, Naomi kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, no, we will return with you to your people. But Naomi said, turn back, my daughters! Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?
Turn back, my daughters! Go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, Would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter for me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.
Now look, we don’t need to get bogged down in these verses, but here Naomi is considering the law of levirate marriage. It might not mean much to us. Again, I have put the reference on the handout. You can read about it in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. It is basically the duty of a brother to marry his dead brother’s wife both to care for her and to provide her with children who will care for her in old age and keep the dead brother’s name alive.
And Naomi is saying here to her 2 bereaved daughters-in-law, even if I got married the moment we got back to Bethlehem, and even if an old woman like me could get pregnant and have children, you’d have to wait, what, 18, 20 years before those children grew up and were able to marry you, by which time you may well be beyond childbearing age yourselves. So she says, verse 12, turn back to Moab. So here they are in the valley of decision. Naomi has decided to go to Judah and now her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, have a decision to make— follow Naomi as she returns to Judah or return to Moab. It was a difficult and deeply distressing decision.
Look at verse 14, then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, see, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, don’t urge me to leave you or to return 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 will die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also, if anything but death parts me from you. And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, She said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.
These are wonderful words from Ruth that tell us clearly that she’s not simply sticking with Naomi. No, her decision is a decision to follow the Lord. Verse 16 again, your people shall be my people, your God my God. Verse 17, She calls on the name of the Lord. She knows the covenant name of the one true living God.
Ruth is not just going along with her mother-in-law. In the valley of decision, Ruth decides for the Lord for the rest of her life.
The valley of doubt, the valley of death, the valley of decision, and finally the valley of deception.
So verse 19, the 2 of them went on their way until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said in the city, Is this Naomi? See, it had been 10 years. We saw that back in verse 4.
10 years! Is it any wonder that they were unsure whether this was really Naomi? It certainly looked like her but she looked older and there was no sign of Elimelech or the boys. And so they asked, Is this Naomi? And verse 20, She said to them, Don’t call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty?
Has brought calamity upon me. Naomi has returned to the land and to the Lord but she feels bitter and empty. She called me bitter, verse 20. That’s what Mara means. This is so real.
Yes, she’s returned to the Lord and his people but there’s no immediate triumphant happy ever after for her. This is the harsh reality of living in a messy world. In this broken world, returning to the Lord doesn’t always instantly make us feel joyful or pleasant. You see, that’s what the name Naomi means— pleasant. But she doesn’t feel who she actually is.
Pleasant is the last thing she feels. There is no mountaintop experience for Naomi; she is still in a valley. And it’s what I have called the valley of deception because although she has returned to the land of blessing and of plenty, she felt cursed and empty, you will see in verse 21. And it’s a valley of deception not because she has been deceived; deceived, but because her emotions are deceiving her. Because she can’t see the blessing that is right beside her and all around her, but feels so empty, she just believes the Lord has been unkind to her.
As we close, look at verse 22.
Naomi had returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, was with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. It is brilliant, this verse. If you have heard nothing else, hear this verse. Naomi felt empty and bitter, but standing right next to her was Ruth, and all around her the barley harvest had begun.
And through the rest of this book we see that through Ruth, and as a result of the barley harvest, the Lord would bring blessing and fulfilling to Naomi beyond her wildest dreams. If you know the book of Ruth, and I know many of you do, you will know exactly what I am talking about. If you don’t know the book of Ruth, well, I am reluctant to say any more because that would ruin the rest of the story. And I am particularly reluctant to say any more because this chapter ends like this, because what is true for Naomi is true of life. So often we can’t make sense of the rubbish that’s been thrown at us.
So often we don’t see the way the Lord will bless us, even if it’s right under our nose.
You see, intellectually and theologically, Naomi knew that the Lord was in control. She says that in verse 21, the Lord, the loving kindness of God.
But like Naomi, even if we know theologically that the Lord is in control, we can’t always see it when our circumstances are so awful. We can’t see how it’s going to result in blessing. If I can put it this way, when we’re in the fog, we find it hard to see the Lord’s kindness. But in the end, the fog is lifted and there’s blessing and fulfilment and sweet satisfaction.
And as we read on in the book of Ruth, the fog lifts for Naomi.
And as we read on, not just in the book of Ruth but in the book of the Bible, we’re given a glimpse of the end and we’re shown that we don’t need to be bitter. The fog lifts and we see with the Lord, no matter how it may feel, we’re not empty. As we heard in our first reading, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. And as we read on, we see that all of that will come to fulfilment. No matter how it feels, he hasn’t abandoned us.
He’s working for us. And more than that, he will deeply satisfy us beyond our wildest dreams. We’re going to see that in the weeks ahead.
And we’ll get a little glimpse of it as we take communion in just a moment. For at the cross we see the Lord who loves us, whose death for us has won a future for us of blessing and fulfilment and satisfaction beyond anything we can experience in this world. Let’s pray together. Now Father, this morning many of us may feel very much like Naomi and Elimelech, not really satisfied in the Christian life, looking over at the world and it looking so attractive and offering so much.
Help us as we look at this chapter and through these weeks, this book, to realise that you are the place where we will find satisfaction, joy, fulfilment, everything that we want. And even if we can’t see it now, help us to see it through the eyes of faith that you have shown us the end. Help us to believe these things that we may live for you now and for the rest of our days. Amen.
