Listen or read the following transcript as Sinclair Ferguson speaks on the first chapter of Ruth
The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.
Please turn with me in the Word of God to the book of Ruth, and we’ll read together the first 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 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. (Ruth 1:1-22, ESV)
May God bless His Word to each of our hearts this morning.
Well, now let me say to you first of all, what a great privilege and pleasure it is to be able to share with you this morning in the worship of God. And I am obviously appreciative of the welcome that Mr. Wynne has given to me on your behalf. When I was here in Aberystwyth for the conference last time, I think it must have been 1980, and on the assumption that one might anticipate three score years and ten, I still had a good deal more than half of the way to go.
And it is rather a sobering and solemnizing thought, especially as I see how much older those who were already old in those days seem now to be, to recognize how brief our lives really are and how little opportunity there seems to be in the end of the day to do something for our Lord Jesus. But we are here together because our deepest desire together surely is that we might do something for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And it is my privilege in these morning sessions to invite you with me to seek to immerse ourselves in this portion of God’s Word which we find together in the little book of Ruth. Now, obviously the book of Ruth is not Paul’s epistle to the Romans. It is not Hebrews. It is not the mighty apocalyptic book of the Revelation. It is not even, one might say, the Sermon on the Mount, passages to which, certainly speaking for myself, I might instinctively be drawn when the privilege is given of ministering in such a context and situation as this.
But nevertheless, the book of Ruth, in which I hope, however superficially, we will be able to engage ourselves for these four hours of study in the course of the rest of this week, is a book with, it seems to me, a singular message for us. And I want us to try, as God enables us and as the Spirit breathes upon the word, to study these four chapters together for reasons other than the obvious reason that the book of Ruth comfortably breaks down into a series of four discrete studies. I want us to turn to this book because, like every other part of the Bible, it is part of the God-breathed Scripture.
As we study Scripture together on our own and as many of us have the privilege of expounding it and applying it to the people of God, we seek to do so constantly, don’t we, in the understanding of the apostles’ teaching at the end of 2 Timothy 3 and the beginning of 2 Timothy 4.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 3:16-4:2, ESV)
There should really be no hiatus, no chapter division at that point. We recognize that all Scripture is given to us and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction or healing, for straightening, transforming the life and in order to equip us to serve God.
And whenever we turn to Scripture, we ask ourselves, in what ways does this portion of Scripture do these four things? And when we listen to the preaching of Scripture as Paul urges Timothy to preach it, it is striking that He picks up each of these four things and says to Timothy, since this is what Scripture is for, let Scripture do its work in your preaching or in your Bible study and in your personal experience.
And therefore we want to look out in this portion of Scripture for doctrine, for teaching, for the teaching about God and about ourselves that will illumine our minds and our understanding, for reproof, for areas in which the Spirit will touch our consciences and convict us of sin, for healing and correcting and restoring, and in order that together we may be equipped in every way, fully equipped to serve our Lord Jesus Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit as He ministers through the exposition of Scripture, we will surely find that this is true.
But I have another reason for engaging your attention in these studies in the book of Ruth and that is this, that the book of Ruth is part of the biblical narrative of redemptive history. That is to say, it is a portion of Old Testament Scripture that is one more building block in the purposes of God as He looks forward to the redemption of His people through the sacrificial blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And just as it is true, it is certainly true, perhaps for some of you here who are younger and in love for the first time, that when there is real love, there is no detail of another’s life that is insignificant to you. And this is one of the details of God’s purpose in redemptive history, one of the building blocks in His preparatory work as He makes His way in sovereign grace to the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.
And indeed, this book in the last analysis cannot really be understood apart from the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall see. But if we love Christ, we love every last detail of God’s way of saving us through Christ. And detail, though it may be small book, incidental, though it may be in God’s sovereign wonder, it is a detail about the Savior we love ultimately. And in that sense, by God’s grace, we will be able to see Christ Himself more fully and clearly because we understand this little book of Ruth or those other books of the Old Testament redemptive plan that we might study together.
But there is another reason why this book, I think, is especially meaningful to us at a practical and pastoral as well as at a doctrinal and theological level, and it is this. The book of Ruth is a book about the details of the divine providence. It is one of those biblical narratives which when put under the microscope shows us, as it were, in miniature but in detail, how perfect the sovereign providential purposes of our God really are.
One of the things that manifestly, because this book is in many ways full of biographical studies, one of the things that it does for us is it puts lives under the microscope in order to help us to see God’s hand in others’ lives in a way in which we cannot yet see His hand in our own lives. In order that seeing how He writes His signature in others’ lives, we may recognize the letters of His writing as He begins to write His divine purposes into our lives.
We were singing about that in William Cooper’s hymn, which is, as you know, based on the 77th Psalm. God moves in mysterious ways, that is to say, ways that we cannot at first see. That is why we always mistrust the person whose every sentence begins by him saying, “The Lord is doing this in my life.” As though mortal man could fully comprehend what immortal God is doing in his life. He plants His footsteps in the sea. And as the psalmist says, the confusing thing sometimes to us, the exasperating thing, if we can put it this way reverently about God, is that if He plants His footsteps in the sea, footsteps planted in the sea become immediately invisible.
And often in our lives, God’s footsteps are invisible. He plants His footsteps in the sea and He rides upon the storm where He is equally invisible. But here it is in the Book of Ruth, as though God were allowing us into the very teeth of the storm, into the eye of the storm, into the depths of the waves and saying to us, “Do you see how I planted My footsteps in the lives of these children of mine in ancient days? Let me show you My signature in their lives. That’s the kind of God I am. That’s the kind of thing I do. And that’s precisely what you may expect Me to do in your life too.”
And so, the Word of God in this sense becomes especially profitable to us. And I think this is particularly significant in this little Book of Ruth. Those of you who are familiar with it will recognize this immediately because these people who are set before us here, even in this opening chapter, are ordinary people with an extraordinary God.
And what we shall see in cameo fashion is the way in which our extraordinary God takes up ordinary people in extraordinary ways into His perfect purposes and uses them in ways inexplicable in terms of the ordinary. In order that as year succeeds to year, God will sovereignly work out His perfect, glorious purposes in their lives.
And so, as we turn particularly to this opening chapter this morning, we bring it to our own attention to gaze into the Scriptures as though they were a mirror for us. Reflecting, as it were, over our shoulder in the lives of these people of God in ancient days, reflecting over our shoulder the presence of Jehovah and showing us as we gaze upon ourselves also in Scripture the manner in which our Heavenly Father is pleased to work and minister in the lives of the children for whom His Son has shed His precious blood.
And we will see how it applies. It applies in joy and in sorrow. It applies in home and in marriage and in romance. It applies in evangelism. It applies in conversion and consecration so that this little Book of Ruth is, as it were to us, to become a nutshell containing the gospel of the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And you may have noticed as we read together in this opening chapter that it very naturally, yes, naturally divides into three segments. And these three segments, because it is a narrative, because the Book of Ruth was first of all heard rather than read, it is a narrative that takes us on three distinct journeys or three parts of one great spiritual journey and encourages us to pause in three distinct geographical locations.
Stations of God’s grace, we might say, in which He means to teach us how He works in the affairs of His children. The first scene, obviously, in the opening verses is the scene of the journey from Bethlehem to Moab and is largely set in the country of Moab. The second scene in the central part of the chapter is the scene of the journey from Moab to the crossroads between Moab and Bethlehem.
And at that crossroads, we are invited to pause in order that we may reflect on the way in which God is moving His sovereign purposes forward. And the book ends, as you recall, this opening chapter of it and indeed the whole of the rest of the book, ends with that last part of the journey from the crossroads between Moab and Bethlehem in the little town of Bethlehem, later to be visited, of course, by both David and our Lord Jesus Christ, in which we begin to see how God is giving bread and nourishment and salvation to His people in the town that He has so signally promised to bless.
And central in all this, doubtless, are probably the most famous words in the Book of Ruth, certainly the outstanding words of the first chapter of the Book of Ruth, in verses 16 and 17, where Ruth comes to Naomi and says these immortal words,
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.” (Ruth 1:16-17, ESV)
Now it’s one of the characteristics of Old Testament narrative, of Hebrew narrative, that frequently the most important thing, not always, but frequently the most important thing in a narrative is to be found in its center. Because so often in biblical narratives, the great thing is the turning point. You know how that’s true of the Psalms. How so many of the Psalms have a turning point at their center. The Psalmist is going down, down, down. He ends up by going up, up, up. And the great thing to notice is what it was that turned him from going down to going up. And that’s very characteristic of all spiritual experience and characteristic of much Old Testament narrative.
And that’s true of this story. It begins in Bethlehem. It ends in Bethlehem. But its center point is in what takes place at the midpoint between Moab and Bethlehem. And Bethlehem and Moab, the statement of Ruth, which as you will understand is far more, and we shall surely see is far more merely than a statement of human devotion. “Where you go, I will go. Where you die, I will die. Let nothing but death separate you from me.” Even in that statement, it is the central statement that is the key to the whole thing. “Your God will be my God. God and your people will be my people.” That is to say, as we shall see, these words are not so much a statement about mutual human affection as a confession of personal conversion. “Your God will be my God” is a profession, not of love for a mother-in-law, amazing though that may be, but of conversion and consecration to God.
And that is what has taken place at the turning point in this whole chapter. Indeed, if we were Hebrews listening to this story for the first time, we would have picked up the signals of that. We would have picked up the signals of that and in some of the versions that try to translate the same Hebrew term by the same English term, if you have one of those translations and look at this chapter from the point of view of seeing if there is a refrain that runs through this chapter, with the Hebrews of old, we would immediately understand that this was the real core of the message of this chapter. It is about conversion.
Why do I say that? I say that because the Old Testament’s verb for conversion, or at least the verb that is most characteristic of the Old Testament, when it speaks about turning back to God, of returning to the Lord, of converting to the Lord, is used throughout this chapter on no less than 11 occasions. And translated variously in our versions as turning, turning back, or returning. And it’s intended to be a kind of melody that runs through the chapter, so that almost underneath the storyline, there is this constant punctuation mark that is saying to us, you can’t possibly miss what this story is about. It’s about turning. It’s about returning. It’s about conversion.
Indeed, if Jonathan Edwards hadn’t stolen the title, we might well say that this first chapter of the book of Ruth is really the narrative of a surprising conversion. And in that sense, it is one of the great, perhaps almost the most detailed account in the Old Testament of the ways in which God sovereignly works in the lives of those whom He has chosen to bring them savingly to Himself and to convert them.
And I want us to try to explore how this opening chapter of the book of Ruth underlines this glorious mystery of saving grace for us. And as I say, it does so by taking us through these three scenes. Scene one, of course, takes place largely in the country of Moab. And it is set before us in the opening five or six verses in order to underline for us that the saving purposes of God ordinarily begin in the hidden and sometimes dark providences of God. The saving purposes of God in my life ordinarily begin in His sovereign and sometimes dark providences in someone else’s life.
The opening words, of course, set the scene for us. They do so chronologically. In verse one, “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.” But those last few words set the scene not only chronologically, but also sociologically and morally. If we understand the teaching of the Old Testament scriptures, the statement that there was a famine in the land, which God had promised to give to His people and bless them, a land flowing with milk and honey, and no area of that land more flowing with milk and honey than the area around Bethlehem.
If we are told there was a famine in the land in the days of judges, we immediately understand that this is not merely a chronological or historical statement. It is a sociological and moral statement. You remember the closing verse of the book of Judges. “In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did as he saw fit.” A refrain repeated from Judges 17:6,
6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:6, ESV)
What was the significance then of being in the days of the judges and there being a famine in the land? My friends, it was quite simply this. When God had made His covenant with His people in Moses, He had urged Moses to explain the significance of that covenant to them. And you remember those long chapters at the end of the book of Deuteronomy that consist of the blessings that will come to God’s people if they are faithful to His covenant promises, and the curses that will come, the judgments that will come to God’s people if they are unfaithful to His covenant and turn away from His promises.
And invariably, the beginning of the curses has got to do with what God does to the land and to the supply of food. How He makes the heavens like brass. How He stops up the waters of the heavens. How He blights the harvest. How the people are no longer able to garner food and their barns are empty. These are not simply accidents of history for the people of God. These are the outworking of God’s sovereign promise.
“Turn away from me and I will begin to send you, first of all, gently, if seriously, warning signs urging you to turn from your sin and your hardness of heart and return to me and then I will bless you again. And your harvest will be bountiful.” It was in such a time, in days when God, as it were, had switched on the amber warning light that was a standing signal to the people of God, that they were drifting from Him and that He was urging them to repent, that we are introduced to this little family. This man, Elimelech, his wife Naomi, their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. And here in this setting, the message is, “Little family of God’s covenant people, in the midst of these needy days, return to the Lord. Call upon Him that He may have mercy upon you. Repent of your sins. He will come to you with armloads of forgiveness and grace. He will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten. Return to me.”
But instead of turning back to the Lord, this little family, the man’s name meant, “My God is King.” This little family turned their backs on the Lord. And we are told, went to live for a while. Verse 1, in the country of Moab. And it is, although by no means all Old Testament commentators are agreed on this point, it seems to me to be quite obvious from the teaching of Scripture that we are meant to understand that this little family, however great the need was, however worldly wise the move might be, and however right it may be for us Christians in a different epoch of God’s purposes to emigrate to another land, even to England or the United States for that matter, there was something about this emigration that involved turning the back upon the Lord’s provision, the Lord’s word, and the Lord’s summons to repentance.
And instead of taking grace from Him as they sought His forgiveness, this little family in its councils decided that if God was not providing what they believed they needed for their lives, they would take it for themselves. And they went to live for a while, we are told. They meant merely to be sojourners for a season. They went to live for a while in the fields of Moab. And I say it seems to me to be crystal clear that we are to interpret this as a movement of spiritual decline.
For one thing, they were forsaking the one piece of land in all the universe which God has ever specifically promised to bless. That’s one of the differences, isn’t it, between the old covenant and the new covenant. In the old, there were geographical spaces and times which God had designated especially holy. There were actually parcels of land where God had promised to meet with His people in ways that He didn’t promise to meet with them anywhere else. And this holy land, this promised land was such a place, it was the one place on earth where whatever happened, you could be safe sheltering under the wings of Jehovah.
And I think it’s not insignificant that they went to live, we are told, in the fields of Moab, the country which has its origin, if you care to look at these verses at your leisure later on in the sad story of Genesis chapter 19. Refusing the summons, the manifest amber warning lights that God was giving to them, they forsook the land of promise. And they went, as we are told, one of the versions indeed translates it this way, to live for a while. Interesting, isn’t it, that within a few verses we speedily learn that they were actually there ten years.
Many of us immediately, instinctively recognize an echo of this in our own lives, don’t we? When we turned our backs upon the Lord, it was only going to be for a little while. But for ten long and painful years, as we shall see, they found themselves in a desert place. And first of all, the husband died. And then we are told, the boys, you can understand this, some of you may echo this with almost unbearable pain, the boys married Moabite women.
Now again, it’s true technically that Moabites were not barred from the assembly of God’s people. But the fact of the matter is, of course, in these old days, that men had an access to the assembly of God’s people that women didn’t. But it is true, as you remember, the Old Testament teaches us that men had an access to the assembly of God’s people. As you remember, the Old Testament teaches us that the offspring of a mixed marriage between a covenant child and a Moabite person, the offspring of that marriage were not allowed into the assembly of the Lord for ten generations, that is for 400 years, until even the longest standing searcher of family trees had forgotten where these people came from.
Everything about Moab spelt out alienation from God and from His promises and certainly the worship of the people of Moab was the worship of the fertility cult and the fertility gods. It was an abomination to the Lord. And then, as though that were not brief enough, the narrative tells us as it proceeds in verse 5. That after they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died. And now, as though if the author of this book were a movie director, you could see at this point the coffins of the boys being carried away and then the central camera focusing upon the face, perhaps the tears, perhaps even the tearlessness because perhaps the woman was no longer able to weep, she was so grieved and afflicted. Centering upon these words at the end of verse 5, “Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.”
She was, if I may put it this way, and again this is a distinctive feature of the Old Testament that certainly does not seem to be a characteristic mark of the New Testament. She was left in the position of the cursed one. No fruit from her womb. Desolate, bereft, alienated.
And I suppose most of us would recognize, perhaps some of us even have a little taste of this in our lives, that here is this woman into whose life, as she later will say, God has thrust His sword right into her heart, taking away her husband. And then, as though that were insufficient, twisting the sword again within her as one of her boys is taken from the scene of time. And then twisting it once again as the other boy is removed from the scene of time.
It’s hardly surprising that she says, in verse 13, it is bitter for me because the Lord’s hand has gone out against me. And in verse 20, don’t call me Naomi pleasantness, call me Mara bitter because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full and now I am empty.
Now, by and large, most of us wouldn’t dare to say to a woman in this position, my dear woman, the explanation for your experience is this. The Lord has afflicted you. We wouldn’t dare. We would put our hands to our mouths. We would be at their best, certainly Job’s comforters. We would sit in silence. What could we say in such a situation?
But she says it herself. It is the Lord who has made my life very bitter. I must say to you, I am still unpersuaded that what she is saying is the Lord has made me very bitter. Is there not evidence here at the end of this chapter that this woman whose name is pleasant wants her name to be bitter, not because the Lord has twisted her into bitterness, but because she has discovered in His grace that out of the bitterness of life’s experiences, He is able to bring something new.
But that notwithstanding, life had been appalled, bitter for her. Indeed, is this not true and is this not part of the mystery of her experience? Don’t you think she must have cried out in her dark hours of loneliness, God, what have I done to deserve this?
My friend, would you dare to say to her, would you dare to say to her, the explanation is simple, you left the promised land, you deserved everything you got. You know, that would be to act as a Job’s comforter, she had sinned, it seems to me, quite obviously. But it would be to act as a Job’s comforter to say, the solution is very simple, you’ve sinned and here is the punishment that you deserve.
Now, we recognize that we deserve nothing from God’s hand but punishment. But the error I think we need to be counseled to avoid is saying we can draw a very simple equation between the suffering of this woman and the sin in which her family had engaged for the simple reason that her suffering is not explicable merely in terms of her sin.
Don’t you hear her cry if we say to her, Naomi, it’s simple, it’s just because your family sinned, it’s a very simple thing. If it were that simple, she might be able to cope with it. Isn’t that true? If we know why we are being punished, it’s easier to bear it. If we can reduce it to a simple formula, God’s displeased with me and he’s spanking me, it’s as simple as that. Then we can cope with God.
What makes God so difficult for us to cope with is He can never be reduced to simple formulas when His purpose is to bring His children into experiences of suffering. And I have little doubt under these circumstances there is. There are only two things any mortal could ever contemplate doing. One is turning their backs finally upon God and shaking their fists in His face. How can you be a God of love and of grace when this inexplicable experience is mine?
As one of the Puritans said, however, it’s true that a knife can cut either a man’s throat or his meat. The glorious thing about God’s grace, which interestingly is no further analyzed in this book. The marvelous thing about the mystery of God’s grace is that God’s grace in the midst of all this suffering was working like a potter’s hands, transforming this woman’s heart, softening it, melting it.
So that as we are told in verse 5 and 6, she heard in Moab some pilgrim passing through the land, some trader going through the desert places. She heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of His people by providing food for them. The covenant blessing had returned. God’s people had been repentant. There was a supply of food again for the needy, and her heart was melted within her.
The Lord opened Naomi’s heart, we might say, and graciously brought this woman through the bitterness of her experience back into the depths of His heart. You see the motivation for that incidentally? The necessity of repentance is always rooted in the condemnation of God’s holy law. But the motivation that brings us to repentance is always rooted in God’s covenant mercy.
It is as the Westminster Confession says, out of a sense of the mercy of God that we are brought to saving repentance. As was true of this woman. Naomi. Thou knowest the way to bring me back, my fallen spirit to restore. But what a way, what a way. “Before I was afflicted,” says the Psalmist, “I went astray, but now I keep your word.”
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. (Psalm 119:67, ESV)
One of our closest friends died a number of years ago of what they nowadays call mad cow disease. He died not knowing the spiritual condition of his daughter, an adopted girl, incidentally. And I will never forget him saying to me, he was a very prosperous businessman, but God had earlier brought him through affliction and trial. I’ve never forgotten him saying to me when I was a very young minister of the gospel, “I’ve learned what the Psalmist meant when he said, ‘Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.'”
And as the years have passed since his death, his beloved daughter has become the brightest believer you could imagine. And as often said, I do believe that were it not for daddy’s death, this work of grace would never have been done. See what He was doing.
And that’s precisely what we learn as we are brought from the scene of Moab to the scene of the crossroads between Moab and Bethlehem. As these women folk together make this journey, verse 6, “The Lord had come to the aid of His people.” Naomi plans to return with her daughters-in-law, and they say they will go with her. Verse 7, “They left the place where they had been living. They set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.”
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. (Ruth 1:6-7, ESV)
And clearly at some point in this journey, Naomi turns to these two girls, Orpah and Ruth. And this whole scene becomes a kind of turning point in each of their lives. You’ll notice how it becomes a turning point in Naomi’s life by what she says to them. “Go back,” she says, “each of you to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” And she kisses them.
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. (Ruth 1:8-9, ESV)
And then Naomi says, when Orpah has decided she will go back, “Naomi says, come with me and you will discover that there is nothing, nothing guaranteed.” And she’s doing something she obviously could never have done when they were living together in the land of Moab.
Why does she say this? If she’s really herself being restored, why does she say to these girls, “Go back to your own gods?” Why does she say, “Go back home and there you will find another husband? You’ll never find another husband with me. Go back home and there you’ll find provision. Go back home and there you’ll find your family. Go back home and there you’ll find a home. With me, nothing is guaranteed.” Why does she do that?
Is it because she wants to abandon them to their past paganism? By no means. Don’t you think she’s doing exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ was doing when the rich young ruler came to him and said, “What must I do if I’m to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus apparently almost casually said, “Well, there are the commandments. Go and obey them. It’s as simple as that.” And then turned to him and said, “Now, if you really want to find eternal life, sell everything you’ve got and come and follow me.”
16 And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, 19 Honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Matthew 19:16-22, ESV)
You see, Naomi was doing what she couldn’t have done in Moab. She was speaking to them about what may be involved in abandoning ourselves to the grace of God. That nothing else may be guaranteed to us in a mechanical fashion except that His grace will be sufficient for all our needs, whatever they may be. No hope of worldly prosperity. She’s saying to them, as it were, “Silver and gold have I none? I can’t help you in that way. Grace doesn’t guarantee that.”
She is inviting them to do what her own family had failed for so many years to do. She’s inviting them to count the cost of belonging to the Lord. No husband, no provision, no security, no children, no hope, no future, no protection.
My friends, the woman has been changed. Changed in a way some of us doubtless need to be changed. Some of us haven’t been able to speak like this to people who have asked us about the gospel for years and years for the very simple reason that there is nothing in our own lives to authenticate that this is what the gospel is about.
But when the Lord restores us to Himself and we yield without reservation to Him, we’re able with a clear conscience to speak to others about His all-sufficiency. “Fading is the worldling’s pleasure. All his boasted pomp and show, solid joys and lasting pleasures none but Zion’s children know.” And she’d come to know it. She was going to be with the Lord. She was knowing His grace and nothing else ultimately mattered because she knew the promise that God would provide for her needs rather than for her instinctive desires.
But what about the girls? What about the girls? Well, it was a turning point for Orpah, wasn’t it? I suppose she was probably in her mid-twenties, perhaps even still in her early twenties given the marital customs of the East in those days. Still perhaps an eligible girl, still with the whole of life before her, still with the maternal instinct to bear children although she was as yet barren. She does the calculation: Jehovah plus nothing, or everything minus Jehovah, and she chooses the immediate, the temporal, and the visible in worldly wisdom and turns away, turns her back. It was a turning point certainly for Naomi. It was a turning point for Orpah, but for no one was it such a turning point as it clearly was for Ruth.
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. (Ruth 1:15-18, ESV)
It’s one of these sweet occasions in scripture. You can imagine the scene. Here is Naomi speaking to her, saying, “Go back now, go back now,” and here is this young woman almost exasperated with her mother-in-law, I’m quite sure. Although as Matthew Henry says in his commentary on this passage earlier on, the prayers of a mother-in-law are never to be despised. But here she is, exasperated with this woman who can’t stop talking. And she’s looking for a, she’s looking to be able to get a word in edgeways to say, “Listen, mother-in-law, I’ve been converted. Stop urging me, I’ve been converted.”
How do we know that? Because the language that she uses is the language of conversion in scripture. Look at these words that lie at the very heart of her statement. They are the jewel in the crown of verses 16 and 17. “your people will be my people and your God, my God.” Now if you know the Old Testament at all, those words ring bells in your mind and in your memory. Even if it’s frustrating to try to think where it is, you’ve heard them before. But where have you heard them before? You’ve heard them before when God came to His people and made the covenant of grace and salvation with them and said to them, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Those are the words in which God committed Himself to saving His people.
And Ruth is saying in response to Naomi, “This God who brought His people out of Egypt in the exodus, who has promised to provide us with grace and salvation, Naomi, this is my God. Your God will be my God and your people will be my people.” She does exactly what you remember Boaz had heard that she had done in Ruth 2:12. She had come to take refuge under the wings of the Lord, the God of Israel.
12 The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord , the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” (Ruth 2:12, ESV)
Or in the words Paul uses to describe the conversion of the Thessalonians, she had turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
9 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, ESV)
And without reservation, you will notice, and with no limitation, and with a consecration that is both to the Lord and to the Lord’s people, this young woman is gloriously converted.
Now, let us stand back for a moment and ask ourselves the question we asked some time ago, Naomi’s question, “Lord, why? And why me?” And here already is part of the answer. Ruth. Ruth is part of the answer. You see that? You see that in the mystery of God’s purposes, I suppose if we found this chapter of the Old Testament without the book title at the beginning and just this chapter lying on the ground somewhere, we’d be astonished if we learned that it was called the book of Ruth because this first chapter is almost all about Naomi. Why? Why? Because that’s what Naomi is about. Naomi is about, in the purposes of God, God bringing Ruth savingly to Himself.
My friends, that’s one reason why we could never say there is a simple equation in Naomi’s life. She sinned and therefore she is suffering because God’s great purpose in her life has not been to punish her for her sin. But even in the mystery of the intermingling of her sin in human history, it has been His purpose to reach through her life to bring Ruth to Himself. God has been plowing in Moab and now, and now He is beginning to reap.
And that is why the third scene at the end of the passage which is set in Bethlehem is set at the time of reaping. And this is another thing that we probably ought to notice about biblical narratives in general. Often, because people are not able to turn back, often in the way in which biblical narratives tell the story, they keep throwing out little hints like overtures in some great piece of music that is to be played. Little hints that don’t seem to have a great deal of significance until later on these hints are picked up and worked out again.
And one of these hints is at the end of the chapter. The end of the chapter tells us when they return and Naomi makes this great confession. We’re told in the closing words in verse 22, “They arrived in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.” Now that’s not merely, it’s not merely a chronological statement for this reason. The chapter opened with the famine beginning. The chapter closes with the harvest beginning.
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. (Ruth 1:22, ESV)
The book opens with the spiritual famine in the lives of this family. The chapter closes with the beginning of the harvest of God’s grace in this family and particularly in Naomi and then in Ruth. Because scene three brings us to the place where God, who has worked out His wonderful purposes, begins to garner the harvest of what He has ploughed and what He has sowed.
And you see it already, not only in the conversion of Ruth, but you see it in the way in which there is a kind of spiritual stirring, obviously, in Bethlehem. The whole town is speaking about them. “Is this Naomi? What has changed her?” Grey hairs, doubtless, have changed her. Sorrow in her face has changed her. But this testimony is the most changed thing of all. This woman who went out with her family, “we are going to make it on our own.” She comes back now humbly and says, “I went away full.”
I don’t think she can really mean that she went away full in the material sense, there was a famine on, but “I went away full, full of ourselves and our own plans and what we would accomplish. I wish I went away full, but now Jehovah has brought me back empty. Don’t call me pleasant any longer, call me by the name Mara, that my life may be a standing testimony to the way in which God brings the sweet out of the bitter and gives His grace in the midst of our sin and of our grievous failure.”
And the whole town, we are told, was stirred. Even this bachelor boy, Boaz, of whom we shall read in chapter 2 and thereafter, he is hurt. He seems to be, if I may say so, the kind of man who keeps himself scrupulously at a distance from the gossip of the town and from over free mingling with what is going on in the women’s tea parties in Bethlehem. But even he is hurt, and what he is hurt, isn’t this significant, what he is hurt is not just that Naomi has come back, what he is hurt is that a Moabite has been converted. “Are you the girl who has been converted,” he says, “who has come to take refuge under the wings of the Almighty?”
The whole town is stirred, there is, as it were, at least the beginnings of a spiritual awakening and cleansing and revival, and it just takes one conversion apparently. Some of you know that, you’ve seen it, you’ve seen the impact of one conversion or of one believer who has been gloriously restored, and the ripple effect of God’s divine purposes as He touches others, and you see already in these opening verses, we are able to see how God was working His purposes out as year succeeded to year.
The amazing thing, as we shall see in the rest of the book of Ruth Godwilling, is that what these women, and especially Ruth, discovered, which Orpah was never able to discover because she turned her back permanently upon the Lord, was exactly what Jesus promised to Simon Peter when he saw the rich young ruler go away, sorrowful because there were great riches to be preserved if he didn’t come to faith in Christ.
Here is a woman who came to faith in Jehovah and discovered, as our Lord promised to Peter when Peter said, “Lord, we’ve left everything for you, what about us?” And Jesus said, “no one has ever left home or family, wife, children, lands, houses, fields, for my sake and the gospel, who has not received in this world a hundredfold. And in the day to come, eternal life.”
And the closing three chapters, which are chapters of plowing and reaping and harvesting, tell us how God almost systematically replaced everything that Ruth might have counted as loss for the excellency of Jehovah.
Now, my friends, as we close this morning, there is one final thing we must do, and that is to stand back from this whole chapter and ask ourselves, how is it in this whole chapter that we see the divine signature written, Naomi, into whose life comes the death of her husband, Elimelech, the death of her son, Mathlon, the death of her son, Chilion, but through whose life comes the spiritual life and conversion of this young woman, Ruth, and much that we will later see of God’s infinitely gracious purposes, where and how do we see the signature of our Lord Jesus written into this?
You know these words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4, where he says this about his own ministry,
10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:10-11, ESV)
So then, 2 Corinthians 4:12, may the Spirit write it on our hearts,
12 So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:12, ESV)
You know where he learned that, don’t you? He learned that in those hours and days in which he had stood watching Stephen being stoned to death aimlessly and found himself being brought to life. It was written into the way in which the Apostle Paul was converted that what God was doing in the suffering of Stephen and in his death would be explicable only in terms of what God was doing in Saul of Tarsus. Tarsus and that new spiritual life. And death worked in Naomi, and life worked in Ruth. Well, my friends, there is much more to come.
How, after all, will Naomi’s prayer in verse 8 be answered? “May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that you will find rest in the home of another husband.” We shall see that this prayer too is answered.
Do you see the signature? Do you see the signature in your own life? I experience day by day, sharing in the death of my Lord Jesus Christ. “There is much affliction as we enter the kingdom of God,” says the Apostle.
What is the meaning of this suffering? Why is it that I fill up in my own experience what is yet lacking there of the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus? Well, my friend, the answer lies partly in your own life, but not exclusively there. The answer lies in somebody else’s life.
Indeed, it is by no means impossible that there are some of us here today who are such answers. We have wondered from afar, “Why should such a Christian with faith like that go through things like that?” And we have looked into their lives and we do not find any explanation there.
God, in His sovereign purposes, has been using their suffering to bring us to look into their lives, to find Christ for ourselves. And we have been the explanation in God’s providence for their suffering. And we in turn, in our suffering, bear fruit that will last forever.
“God’s purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.”
Let’s pray together.
Our Heavenly Father, write, we pray, the signature of your grace similarly within our own hearts. For those we know in our company who have special sufferings that are manifest to us all, bring fruit, we pray. For those whose sufferings are hidden almost universally, oh, we ask that in the mystery of your dark providences, as you plant your feet upon the sea and your footsteps are invisible to us, bear fruit through us, we pray, that whatever death works in us, the life, the saving life of our Lord Jesus Christ may work in others for His glory. Amen.
