I recently preached in Stirling Baptist Church on Ruth and the Brokenness of Family Life. You can listen to the sermon here. The following blog post is a summary of what I said.
I was recently at a course on the 'Power of Storytelling'. It was a great course and it proved that our brains are wired to respond to stories rather than large amounts of data. As one of the facilitators said 'storytelling is data with soul'. Surely this is why God has given us so many great stories in the Bible? Through these powerful stories God doesn't want us to understand dry data but living truth and exciting doctrine. He uses rich and powerful stories to teach us eternal truths which point us to our need of Christ.
There can be few more powerful stories than Ruth in the Bible. It asks some of the big questions like; Where is God in all the suffering around us? Where is God in death? Can God still be in control when there is so much evil and chaos all around?
Perhaps,
like we often ask in Bethany Christian Trust , you are asking, how does God want us to respond
to
the
poor?
to
the destitute?
to
the refugee?
to
the widow?
to
the hungry?
These
are the questions that are asked and answered in the story of Ruth.
There
can be few Biblical stories more relevant to Europe in 2015 that the story of
Ruth;
A
couple face the stark choice of bringing up their family in the midst of a
natural disaster (a famine). They
give up everything and travel to a strange country. They
arrive disenfranchised, powerless and with nothing but what they can carry.
While
away in this strange land, the tragedy turns into nightmare as Naomi stands at
three open graves. With
no tears left to cry, Naomi returns to her homeland bereft, alienated and
lonely.
How
many millions of people are experiencing what Naomi experienced in this book?
As
the church seeks to respond to the challenge of our age, what can we learn from
Ruth?
We can look at Ruth chapter 1 under 3 headings.
1. Rebellion
a) When the Judges ruled
Chapter 1 begins with the words ‘in the days
when the Judges ruled’.
What kind of days were they? The last verse of Judges 25 tells us. It was a time of chaos, rebellion and
apostasy.
The covenant God Jehovah had promised
blessings for his chosen people when they came into the promised land. These blessings were dependent on their
faithfulness to God’s law.
Deuteronomy 28 promises that God will bless
the people of Israel;
And the Lord make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord swore unto thy fathers, to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, even the heaven to give rain unto thy land in due season, and to bless all the work of thine hands: and thou shalt not lend unto many nations, but shalt not borrow thyself. And the Lord shall make thee the head. and not the tail, and though shalt be above only, and not beneath. Deut
28 v 11, 12, 13.
God had laid out the requirements of his
people very carefully but they had rebelled.
Doesn't that sum up Scotland today?
We are living in a time of national
rebellion.
We see this in family life don’t we?
·
The
CSJ published a report in July 2014 stating that while 62% of 15 year old boys in the UK had a smart phone butonly 57% lived with their fathers.
·
1
million kids had lost contact with Grandparents as a result of separation and
divorce.
·
Family
breakdown cost the country £50 billion per year
· By
the age of five, 48 per cent of children in low-income households are not
living with both parents, according to Government data.
We are a nation in rebellion against God. He is judging us for our unfaithfulness.
b)
Looking for help in the wrong place
The book of Ruth tells us that Bethlehem (House of Bread) was now a place of
famine and desolation. Instead of turning back to the Lord,
Elimelech and his family turn their back on God. They travel to Moab. Elimelech means 'my God is King' while Naomi means 'pleasant'. They were Ephrathites – from the area of Ephrath or
Ephrathah – now Bethlehem. These were true Hebrews – they would have
known the law of God. But Elimelech took his family to Moab – a people God had forbidden Israelites to have anything to do with. The Moabites
had refused to give Israel food and water in their wilderness journey (Deut 23
v 4). Balak,
King of Moab, called for Balaam to curse Israel (Numbers 23 v 7). God commanded the Israelites; ‘Do
not have anything to do with the Moabites or the Ammonites in all your
generation, forever (Deut 23 v 3)
Elimalech
had heard God’s voice in providence, in the famine, and he had also heard God’s
voice clearly through the law. So why
did he disobey?
Elimelech
was addressing the wrong problem. The
problem was not the lack of bread – the problem was the lack of a right
relationship with God. There
had been famines before and God had raised up Joseph to respond to that famine
(Psalm 105 v 16-17).
The
famine wasn’t the issue it was the rebellion that was the issue.
Isn’t
this the problem with our society?
So
often we are addressing a whole range of issues when the fundamental issue is a
spiritual and moral one.
What
Scotland needs more than anything else is a spiritual and moral revival.
No
amount of social work intervention can ever stem the tide of family breakdown,
abuse, domestic violence and intergenerational poverty. Social workers do a heroic job in incredibility difficult circumstances with increasingly limited resources. Of
course we need to help people in crisis but fundamentally we need to build a
stronger and more caring society and that can only happen through the gospel.
It
will only happen as churches in Scotland live out the gospel in their community –
touching broken lives and stemming the tide hurt and pain through grace and
love. Only Christ can ultimately heal our broken nation.
2. Return
a) A change of name
The
time that Elimalech and Naomi spent in Moab became a nightmare.
As
strangers in a strange land Naomi lost not only the bread winner, but both her
sons – she had no living fruit from her womb. The
sons left two widows – Orpah and Ruth. We see three
widows in a patriarchal society with no assets and little hope. As Iain D Campbell says;
The family had left
Bethlehem-Judah and they had come to Moab expecting to find great things;
instead all that they found were broken hearts and broken dreams, and sore
experiences under God’s hand.
What
good could possibly come out of this tragedy?
How
could God be at work in such devastation?
Naomi
is numb with grief as she says in Ruthe 1 v 13 and 20 – 21.
Naomi
is not saying ‘the Lord has embittered me’ or ‘I am very bitter’. Rather she is saying ‘I have experienced
bitterness.’
In the midst of tragedy Naomi did not embrace
atheism but rather anchored herself in the God of the Covenant.
b) A
change in circumstances
We see in v 6 ‘the Lord had come to the aid of his
people.’ Naomi hears that the famine had come to an
end and prepares to ‘return.’ Just like the Prodigal Son, while she is in
the far country people in Bethlehem are feasting.
Often we see in scripture that words that give signals. 'Return' is used 10
times in chapter 1
Return or go back – v 6, 7, 8,10,16, 22
Return home – v 11, 12
Going back – v 15
This Hebrew word 'shub' is used again and again to
illustrate that Naomi and Ruth weren’t just going back to Bethlehem – but they
were also returning to God and his covenant grace and mercy. This was more than a journey for Ruth it was
a spiritual transformation as we see in verses 8 – 18. Orpah returns but how does Ruth respond?
Where you go I will go....
This word ‘return’ is running like a melody
line throughout the whole story. God is at work in the midst of tragedy.
This isn’t just a journey – it about turning
back to God, it is about returning to his grace, it is about coming to faith.
Here we see God starting to work out his
purposes. This tragedy was used by God
to bring a heathen Moabites to trust in Jehovah.
We see in the passage that all the women wept. Orpah
perhaps wept because she had left Moab and wanted to return. Naomi
wept tears of regret because she had gone to Moab ‘because the Lord’s hand has
turned against me’ v 13. Her decision
(along with Elimalech) had brought down the judgement of God. Ruth
wept tears of joy because she had a new life, a new path and new people. She no longer worshiped the gods of nature –
she worshipped Jehovah.
Don’t you see God’s hand as we look back at
this story 1000’s of year later?
Out of death God brings life.
As Sinclair Ferguson says It is a gospel secret that death is the way
of life.
Think of the death of Stephen – stoned to
death. Yet this was the means to awaken
Saul.
3 Redemption
Finally Naomi and Ruth reach Bethlehem. The city was ‘moved’ or ‘stirred’.
How did God provide for these widows? What provision was there in the Biblical
economy?
Will the Lord answer Naomi’s prayer of verse
8?
a) The
law of love for the poor
We often think of the Old Testament laws as harsh and
cruel. But God’s law actually expressed his love,
particularly for the poor. Leviticus 19 v 9-10 and 23 v 22 commanded
farmers not to exhaust their crop but to leave it for those in need. Everyone within the compass of God’s covenant
– the haves and the have not’s had provision. This was the law of grace – the rule of a
bountiful father.
The Bible shows us again and again that God
is interested in the widow, the orphan and the stranger. God is concerned for justice for the
oppressed and mercy for the needy. Provision is made for Ruth by good laws from
a gracious God.
Notice Ruth’s willingness to work. Work gives people purpose, dignity,
confidence and self-esteem.
b) The
ties that bind
Notice also that in God’s providence help is
to come through the family. Ruth gleans in the field of a relative of her
father in law – Boaz.
After her first day of harvest she brings
back around 30lbs of barley. See the surprise of Naomi in Ch 2 v 19. You see what God is saying: ‘Naomi rebelled
and came back empty, Ruth put her trust in me and has come back full.’
It was no accident that Ruth gleaned in Boaz
field.
Boaz was Ruth’s guardian redeemer or kinsman
redeemer.
Boaz showed Ruth kindness or hesed
ch 2 v 20. This word hesed is used 250 times in the O.T.
– it means God’s loving kindness. As Sinclair Ferguson says;
It [Hesed] means God’s deep goodness expressed in his covenant commitment, his absolute
loyalty, his obligating of himself to bring to fruition the blessings that he
has promised, whatever it may cost him personally to do that.
You see, through all the darkness, death and
tragedy, God’s hesed was at work.
Ruth eventually marries her kinsman redeemer (Boaz) and they have a son called Obed, who has a son called Jesse who has a son
called David.
As Ferguson says; What
God was quarrying out of the suffering of these two women was nothing less than
his purpose to bring his Son into the world in Bethlehem.
God not only provided bread in Bethlehem but
he went on to provide the Bread of Life.
The line of Jesus came through gentile woman
with a Jewish mother in law.
What is God’s purpose in Naomi, Ruth and
Boaz? He was quarrying for diamonds.
By the end of the book they had all
experienced God’s hesed.
The story began with no king in Israel
·
It
led to a day when there was no bread in Bethlehem
·
A
dark night when there was no children in her family
·
Now
this covenant keeping, all sufficient God, Yahweh and El Shaddai, has given her
a grandson, and within a few generations will give Israel it’s greatest king.
Do you know this King? Have you come to know the ultimate Kinsman Redeemer - the Lord Jesus Christ? This King who loves the poor and the
marginalised?
‘Praise
be to the Lord who this day has not left you without a kinsman redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel’ (ch 4 v 14).
Let's make our Kinsman Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, famous in Scotland.
