Trusting God’s Sovereignty: A Journey of Faith Ruth:1 – 18

 

Moving homes is hard, regardless of the circumstance behind it. Whether for good or bad reasons, it is usually a daunting task to pack up your entire life in boxes and move to a new place. My wife has moved a total of 23 times in her entire life. Of those 23 times, she moved 17 times in 12 years from the age of 12 to 24. Moving for her became almost normal.

 

Moving for me, was not normal. Even though my parents divorced when I was 10, the property that I came home from the hospital to was always home until it was sold in 2018. Yes, I moved a few times, but I always had a sense of home on our farm.

 

Up until college, my moves had been within a couple of miles of each other. Moving to SLO was a big deal. An even bigger deal was when I had to pack up Julie and baby Ryan and move to Texas for an internship. I know I’ve talked about that experience before, but I really had to wrestle with that one.

 

I was so utterly terrified to make that move and I agonized over that decision, but ultimately decided to go. Back then, God was not the center of life, so I firmly believe that most of my fear and anxiety over moving so far away from everything I’ve known was made worse because I wasn’t following God. And because I wasn’t following God, I certainly wasn’t trusting God.

 

Today I begin a short series through the book of Ruth. Ruth is a neat little book in the OT. It’s four chapters are placed right after the book of Judges, and it paints a beautiful picture of God’s sovereign and redemptive story, especially after the darkness and despair seen in Judges.

 

Because it’s so short, we get introduced to the narrative very quickly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t richly packed with the truth about God and His people. Let’s read God’s Word together: Ruth 1:1 – 5.

 

Right away the writer of Ruth places the events during the time of the Judges. This is the time between the death of Joshua, after the conquest of the promised land, and the crowning of Saul as the nation’s first king.

The time of the Judges was truly a dark time in Israel’s ancient history. Without godly leadership, the people of Israel quickly drifted off into apostasy, that is worshipping other gods and idols, and into doing whatever evil desire they wanted.

 

The book of Judges ends with, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Every time the people turned away from God, God brought oppression through other nations, natural disasters, and real evil from within.

 

And when the people finally had enough and they repented and cried out to God for deliverance, he sent a deliverer. These are the stories of Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. Epic stories, but one theme holds true through them all.

 

As Israel gets worse and does more evil, the judges who deliver them are also more and more morally corrupt. The judges of Israel are not perfect deliverers and redeemers. They do however drive home the people’s need for a perfect redeemer.

 

That is the time in which we get the story of Ruth. The cause of the famine isn’t explicit in Ruth, but logic dictates that famine typically follows several years of drought. Famine, however, fits with the time of the Judges because it can be explained as a judgmental act of God.

 

“Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit” (Lev 26:20).  “The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed” (Deut. 28:24). The covenant curses outlined in Lev. 26 and Deut. 28 are clear, if God’s people went after other God’s there would be consequences.

 

The story begins in Bethlehem and Elimelech. People have always named places and people by what those places are or what those people do and what those people believe. Ancient Israel was no different. Bethlehem is literally means “house of bread.” See the irony there?

 

Adding to the irony here, the name Elimelech literally means “My God is king.” His leading his family away from the promised land certainly showed that Mr. “My God is king” had some doubts about the truth his name declared.

So Elimelech leads his family away from God’s promised land into the land of the Moabites. This was not just a move down the street, nor was this a move to the territory of another tribe of Israel. No, this was a move back east across the Jordan river to the land of a despised people.

 

The Moabites descended from Abraham’s nephew Lot, and they resisted Israel passing through their land during their exodus journey from Egypt. The Moabite women led many Israelite men astray leading to punishment from God, and Israel’s covenant with God specifically excluded Moab from ever being part of the assembly of God.

 

Lastly, the Israelites had recently been oppressed by Eglon king of Moab in Judges chapter 3. There is so much wrong with this picture, don’t miss this. Here is a man with every reason to trust in God, down to his name, and instead he chooses to take matters into his own hands and find relief in a detestable foreign land. And he suffers the consequences of it.

 

Once there, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi alone with their two sons. Her sons, married Moabite women, which also was forbidden for the Israelites. After being married and living there for ten years, her sons die, leaving no heirs. Naomi was left with no hope of survival. Without a male heir there was no one to provide for Naomi or her daughter’s-in-law.

 

 Naomi is in quite a bleak circumstance. But understand this, God has proven time and time again in His Word, and in the lives of every believer, that He sees His children in their affliction, in their suffering, even when they’ve had a hand in it. Naomi isn’t left alone in this situation, and God is at work, even if Naomi doesn’t fully see it yet, there seems to be hope. Let’s go back to God’s Word: Ruth 1:6 – 7.

 

While in Moab, the story finally shows God moving. For the past ten years it was Naomi’s family making decisions, not trusting God, and moving. Now God moves. There’s four parts to this that come together and paint a beautiful picture of God’s grace here.

 

First, it was a gift from God that in the midst of her grief and pain of the loss of her husband, sons, and future hope that she could hear good news. Second, Naomi heard that the Lord moved on behalf of His people, God literally came to the aid of His people.

 

 

Third is the specific identification of His people, God’s covenant people, the nation of Israel that was set apart as God’s own special possession. The return of the rains was a sign that God had not forgotten or rejected them. And fourth, the Lord had given His people bread. Bethlehem, the “house of bread” was being restocked.

 

Naomi finally has a glimpse of hope. In His own sovereign time God pours out His grace on His people. It’s time for Naomi to move back home, to Bethlehem, the house of bread. So she gets up, daughters-in-law in tow, and they set out for Naomi’s homeland. After more than a decade, there seems to be a solution to the problem.

 

With the place where she experienced so much loss and grief behind her and her eye on the hope in front of her, Naomi recognizes a potential problem. Let’s return to our passage and look at how she handles this: Ruth 1:8 – 15.

 

It’s not said how far along the road back to Bethlehem the three women had travelled, but at some point, in their journey Naomi realized something. She was returning to her homeland, her daughters-in-law were leaving theirs, and probably wouldn’t be well received back in Israel.

 

So, intending to spare them her grief, Naomi speaks up and tells them to go back to their mother’s houses. Naomi is essentially telling Orpah and Ruth, you’re released from me to go back to your lives before you married my sons, you’re free to remarry.

 

Naomi’s command is firm, but tender. She insists on Orpah and Ruth returning to their families, but she does so by wishing God’s blessing upon them. She calls on the name of the Lord when addressing her Moabite daughters-in-law. God may have revealed Himself in the OT as the God of the Israelites, but He certainly is the God of everyone and everything, the one true God.

 

Naomi on the surface at least appears to express such deep faith in God that she assumes that His authority, and rightfully so, extends beyond the borders of Israel and into the territories of other gods. Deeper than that though, Naomi’s blessing of God showing them kindness is so inadequately expressed in English. The word here for kindness, is hesed. God’s covenantal love, faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, and loyalty wrapped in one word, hesed.

 

Naomi saw her daughters-in-law deal with her in the same hesed that God shows to his covenantal people. That’s a blessing right there. Naomi also gives them a second blessing, that God would give them rest, that God would bless them with husbands again where they would find peace, permanence, and provision.

 

Naomi, who is feeling bitter, certainly wasn’t feeling any bitterness towards her daughters-in-law. Then she kisses them goodbye, but they don’t leave. Instead they cry out and weep. Ten years they lived with her; they don’t want to leave. So Naomi insists again that they go home.

 

Her second instances now highlights what she cannot give them, a future. Naomi knows she’s too old to get remarried and bear children. Naomi knows that even if she could bear sons again, it wouldn’t be right for Orpah and Ruth to wait until they’re grown up to remarry again. But her insistence on sending them home is deeper than it seems on the surface.

 

In v.14 Naomi finally exposes how she feels about her lot in life. “It is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Naomi feels that she’s the target of God’s overwhelming power and wrath. Naomi has become a bitter old woman who blames God for her troubles.

 

Here’s the problem with getting bitter and blaming God in the midst of trouble: people are not God. They don’t know His sovereign plan, and when life gets tragic, it is easy to get bitter and blame God because they cannot even imagine a good outcome that God has planned.

 

But even a broken clock is right twice a day and Naomi, while Naomi’s faith may have been flickering for a while, was right about one thing. God is in control. In good circumstances and bad circumstances, God is in control, God is sovereign.

 

Naomi is clear about what she believes is the cause of her troubles. The famine in Bethlehem, the move to Moab, the deaths of her husband and sons, and the barrenness of her daughters-in-law, she says are caused by God. Not once does she think to repent of her own and her peoples’ sins, instead she accuses God of injustice toward her.

What is seen here is an Israelite woman suffering a lot of heartache that is affecting her faith. On the one hand she blessed the girls in the name of God, and on the other hand she blames God for her lot in life. Humans are complicated.

 

The girls cry out and weep again, but this time Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and heads back home. But Ruth clings to Naomi. Naomi even points to Orpah’s departure as an example of the right course to take. Here Naomi’s immature faith is demonstrated.

 

She acknowledges that Orpah returned to her gods, as if they’re equal to the one true God. Her faith seems no more orthodox than many of the people in the Book of Judges, which we know was lacking. So what is Ruth to do here?

 

Does she choose her own people and their gods, or does she stick with her mother-in-law and hitch her wagon to Yahweh, the God of Israel, whom she only knew through the lens of Naomi’s imperfect faith.

 

Because God is sovereign over everything, you can trust God and His plan, even when life feels uncertain and painful.

 

Let’s go back to our passage one more time and look at Ruth’s choice when faced with this fork in the road. Let’s read Ruth 1:16 – 18.

 

The first words that we hear from Ruth’s lips are among the most memorable words in all of Scripture. Songs have been sung about these words, poems written, and books refer to them often. There are few sayings in the Bible that match her speech for poetic beauty, and the extraordinary courage and spirituality it expresses.

 

With radical self-sacrifice and a true expression of hesed she abandons every thread of security that any person, let alone a poor widow, in that cultural context would have clung to: her native homeland, her own people, even her own gods.

 

She knew that to commit herself to Naomi and go home with her that she must also commit herself to Naomi’s people and to Naomi’s God. Whatever the motivation, the fact stands that Ruth forsook all that she had known and committed herself to the Lord, the Sovereign God.

 

She committed so deeply that she prayed that God would deal with her just as harshly if anything but death ever took her away from Naomi. She knew enough about God to know that He is real, He is sovereign, and he cares for His people.

 

Your own journey of faith is unique, packed with your own triumphs and failures, and with your own suffering and joy. Because God is sovereign you know that God is the God of the mountaintops just as much as He is the God of the valleys.

 

You can trust God’s sovereign plan for your life, regardless of the suffering and pain and loss you’ve experienced, regardless of what you will experience. Your circumstances in life don’t determine His power, His faithfulness, or His love for you, He determines that.

 

And you can be sure of that. You don’t need to look any further than the cross of Jesus Christ to see His sovereign plan unfold. The cross of Christ is God’s hesed on display for the whole world, to demonstrate His faithfulness and love for not just the world, but for you. The cross of Christ is that personal.

 

His love for you is that deep that He would send His Son to live as one of us, and to willing die for you, to shed His precious blood for you, and then raise Him from the dead defeating death and sin once and for all. That’s how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is for you.

 

Let’s pray.