Ruth 1:8-22

if you'll open with me to the book of Ruth,

where there's no mistakes in the book of Ruth,

praise God, Romans, Ruth, Romans, Ruth, Ruth

chapter one, we're going to read the whole

chapter, but focus on verses eight through 22.

Continuing from the last time we were here,

God's words is now it came about in the days

when the judges governed that there was a

famine in

the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in

Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with

his

wife and his two sons. The name of the man was

Alemelech, and the name of his wife Naomi. And

the names of his two sons were Mahon and Chile

an, Ephrathites of Bethlehem and Judah. Now

they entered

the land of Moab and remained there. Then Ale

melech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left

with her

two sons. They took for themselves Moabite

women as wives. The name of the one was Orpah,

and the

name of the other Ruth. And they lived there

about 10 years. Then both Mahon and Chilean

also died,

and the woman was bereft of her two children

and her husband. Then she arose with her

daughters-in-law,

that she might return from the land of Moab,

for she had heard in the land of Moab that the

Lord

had visited his people and giving them food.

So she departed from the place where she was,

and her two daughters-in-law with her, and

they went on the way to return to the land of

Judah.

And 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.

May 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, but we will surely

return

with you to your people." But Naomi said, "Ret

urn, my daughters. Why should you go with me?

Have I yet sons in my womb that they may be

your husbands? Return, my daughters. Go, for I

am too

old to have a husband. If I said I have hope,

if I should even have a husband tonight, and

also bear

sons, would you therefore wait until they are

grown? Would you therefore refrain from

marrying?

Know, my daughters, for it is harder for me

than for you. For the hand of the Lord has

gone forth

against me." And they lifted up their voices

and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in

-law,

but Ruth clung to her. Then she said, "Behold,

your sister-in-law has gone back to her people

and her gods. Return after your sister-in-law

." But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you

or turn back 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 I

will

be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me and

worse, if anything but death parts you and me

."

When she saw that she was determined to go

with her, she said no more to her. So they

both went

until they came to Bethlehem. And when they

had come to Bethlehem, all the city 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 Almighty has dealt very bitterly with

me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought

me back

empty. Why do you call me Naomi? Since the

Lord has witnessed against me, and the

Almighty has

afflicted me." So Naomi returned and with her

Ruth, the Moabitus, her daughter-in-law, who

returned

from the land of Moab, and they came to Beth

lehem at the beginning of barley harvest. Let's

pray.

Our Lord, we pray that you bless your word to

our minds and to our hearts today. Maybe we

change

and bring you glory for it. Bless the message

in spite of the messenger in Christ's name.

Amen."

And there's so often a false picture of what

Christians are supposed to be.

We're supposed to be smiley, happy people

holding hands. That's the image that is out

there. And I

think there's even a show about smiley, happy

people out there that show the realities of

some

people who claim to be Christians out there.

But of course, that picture is sometimes pro

pped up by

false teachers in our time that portray the

gospel of Christ as a gospel that brings

prosperity and health and wealth and good

things. So if you're a Christian, then you'll

always be

healthy and you'll always be wealthy if you

are right with God. The so-called health and

wealth

gospel started from a movement that's called

the Word of Faith movement. And it's spreading

around the globe. Maybe you've seen the

straight up demonic behavior of the so-called

pastor,

Kenneth Copeland, or the, have you laughed at

the antics of a man called Jesse DePlanus

that claim that if you have the right amount

of faith, if you do the right things, if you

are

right with God, then you can claim wealth and

you can claim healing over sickness and

healing over

pain. But that's not just something that these

greedy shysters of pastors are out there ped

dling

this false gospel of wealth and prosperity.

This belief has actually made it sometimes in

lesser forms, not as blatant forms, but into

everyday churches. There's a part of the

Southern

Baptist Convention called Lifeway, and they

have this research, it's called Lifeway

Research,

and they do polls getting opinions from

different people out there. And in 2023,

they did a poll of Protestant churches or

Christians, professing Christians in America.

And more than half of these Protestant church

goers say that their church teaches that God

will

bless them if they give more money to the

church and to charities. Three out of four at

75% of

the people that they polled said that they

believe God wants them, but it is his plan for

them,

for them to prosper financially. And many

believe that they have to do something,

they have to live a certain way, they have to

do certain things in order to receive those

material

blessings that they think God has promised

them. But is that the right idea that we

should have

as Christians? Is that what God's word, what

the Scripture teaches us, that we should

follow and

believe? Last month, we saw that many in Naomi

's time believe that the same exact thing, only

they

didn't claim to worship Yahweh, that the God

of Israel, the God of the Bible, they worship

ed a

false idol that is called Baal, and in many

different variations of those idols depending

on the land. And the desired outcome for them

was different. We want health and we want

prosperity

because we generally have things so easy. They

were concerned with rain, Baal brought the

rain,

and that rain brought fertility for their

crops and for their animals and for their

wives. And we

just want cash and cars and private jets if

you're the right pastor. But the fundamental

belief

that if you do something, that God will bless

you or that a God will bless you with whatever

is the same between them back there in ancient

times and those people who claim that today.

If we want to be materially blessed, we have

to do something. We have to believe a certain

thing.

We have to appease God to get it. But how does

this square up with your life,

with your experience? And can you imagine the

pain? If you actually believe this word of

faith,

that you name it and claim it and you live a

certain way, what happens when you name it and

claim it and you live that way and you still

don't get the health and you still don't get

the wealth

and prosperity. It's very damaging to the

people who believe that. But not only does it

not square

up with our experience, it doesn't square up

with scripture. Suffering is the reality of

suffering

is talked about constantly in scripture and in

all kinds of suffering, whether it's health

or whether it's pain from persecution. And it

's one of the clearest things that scripture

talks

about over and over and over again. We have

the book of Job. We have Joseph. We have Ruth

here,

David, Jeremiah, Peter, John and Paul and many

more lives that are retold in accounts in

scripture

that we have accounts of their lives that are

full of suffering and pain. And those examples

replete through scripture go directly against

this false gospel, this false teaching of the

prosperity gospel that we have today. But the

bitter providence of God, as we described last

time,

is not capricious. It's not whimsical. He's

just not up there laughing at us and saying,

well, I wonder what's going to happen if I

throw this stumbling block in front of him. He

's up

there doing it on purpose and for a reason.

Like Brother Kyle, if you remember, talked

about us

through Paul's letter to the Thessalonians,

everything he does, the suffering included,

is on purpose. He uses the trials and the

sufferings in our lives to mold us and to make

us more into

the image of Christ. And ultimately, even

though it eventually improves our lives here,

ultimately,

he uses the suffering in our lives for his

glory. And that's one of the main lessons that

we're

supposed to get out of this book of Ruth. As

we continue to go through the story of Naomi

and Ruth

will see that. And remember from last time, we

saw that they began full, that Naomi had a

husband,

that Naomi was blessed with two sons. And they

obviously had some kind of means in their life

,

because when God's judgment came on the land

of Israel through famine, they were able to

move

into the land of Moab that just anybody wouldn

't be able to afford the travel. And then her

sons

were blessed with wives. And we talked about

Orpah and Ruth, and everything seemed to be

going well

until her husband died. She was left a widow.

And then after that, both of her sons died,

verse five says then both Milan and Killian

also died. And the woman was bereft of her two

children

and her husband. She went from fullness to

emptiness. The Bible uses the word bereft,

which means left behind, left with nothing.

Poor Naomi had nothing left, but to make her

way back

to Bethlehem as we saw today. And if you

remember on that path, she started to try to

convince her

two daughters-in-law that they should go back

into their own homes and they should look for

husbands to remarry to take care of, because

she had no expectations of anything where she

was going.

There was no way for her to prosper as a widow

in her own land. The bitterness of suffering

had fallen on to Naomi, on to Orpah, and on to

Ruth. But we will see the hand of God as we go

through the rest of the book of Ruth, shown to

them in response to Ruth's faith and her

loyalty

out of nothing but the hand of the Holy Spirit

. It's such an amazing story how this works.

But

we're still in the empty part. We're still in

the suffering part of the book of Ruth in this

first

chapter. And I want to show that every single

one of us must have faith even through the

bitterness

and the bitter providences of God. And that

the first way is by not turning back like Orp

ah

did, verses 8 through 14. We'll read it again.

And 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. May 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, but we will surely return with you to

your people. But Naomi said, 'Return my

daughters.

Why should you go with me? Have I yet sons in

my womb that they may be your husbands? Return

my

daughters. Go, for I am too old to have a

husband. If I said I have hope, if I should

even have a

husband tonight and also bear sons, would you

therefore wait until they are grown? Would you

therefore refrain from marrying? No, my

daughters, for it is harder for me than for

you. For the hand

of the Lord has gone forth against me." And

they lifted up their voices and wept again.

And Orpah

kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to

her. One of the key things, and one of the

main reasons

why so much suffering is laid out, is spelled

out in Scripture, is that we have the benefit

of seeing the rest of the story. We get to see

, spoiler alert, that in the end of the book of

Ruth,

Naomi goes from emptiness that we see here in

chapter one, back to fullness again, through

the

hand and providence and blessing of God. And

we see in the book of Job, that Job loses

everything

that he has. He loses his health. He loses his

family. But in the end of Job, everything is

restored. In fact, everything was restored

double portion of what he had when he started.

And in the New Testament, we see Stephen.

Stephen is talking to the leaders of the Jews,

and they're telling him to stop preaching the

gospel. And he boldly proclaims the gospel to

them.

And their response is to take him out into the

streets and to stone him, to persecute him,

make him cause him suffering, even unto death.

But in his dying moments, the Lord opens his

eyes,

and he's able to see the end that he will be

going into glory. He sees Christ seated on the

throne

in heaven. So he gets to see through his

suffering that the final hope. So we learn

through all these

accounts so that when we go through those

sufferings, those pains, those trials, we as

believers know,

like Stephen, suffering was not the end for

him. And that gives us the true hope to see

through this

this temporary light affliction that Paul said

, toward the weight of glory that is coming

afterwards,

thanks to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But the three ladies and the story that we

have of them,

they didn't see that right now. They didn't

know the end of the story yet. They were

living through

it in HD 3D, that they were going through the

pain in real time. And so Naomi, in the midst

of her

bitterness, she tries to convince Orpa and

Ruth to return back home. They had no hope in

her mind

and her experience and her understanding.

There was no hope for them where they were

going. They

were on the path back to Bethlehem. And every

once in a while, on their travel back, they

would just

stop and she would try to convince them to go

back. And they would all just sit there and

sob and weep

on the side of the road. We try to convince

them to go and try to find a husband back in

their own

country so that she, that they wouldn't end up

being destitute like she surely would be as a

widow

back in Bethlehem. But on the path back, both

of them, Orpa and Ruth, so they wouldn't

return

back to their country. Verse 10, it says, "And

they said to her, 'No, but we will surely

return with you

to your people.'" So both Orpa and Ruth told

Naomi, they made it clear that they were going

to stay

with her in her trouble and her trials. But

then Naomi turns the heat up again and really

starts

to try to convince them. She was an old widow.

She reminds them she has no hope to get a

husband.

And even if she were to have a husband, she

didn't have much hope of having children.

And in order for she were to have a husband

and to have children immediately,

they would have to wait for them to grow up to

be their husbands. And so in her mind,

there was no hope for them either if they

followed her back. So she ends her argument in

verse 13

by saying, "No, my daughters, for it is harder

for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord

has gone forth against me." The NASB is the

version that we're using. And it uses the word

here,

"It is harder for me than for you." But it's

important for us to note here and to remember

for later that the word is better translated

as bitter. It's more bitter for me than for

you.

The ESV says that it's exceedingly bitter for

me. Naomi is letting it all out. She's

explaining to

them their whole situation. She is mourning

her own loss and the bitter providence of God.

She's given an uncensored account of her

feelings to her daughters-in-law trying to

convince them

to go back to their land. She's really

expressing pain in her own words. She doesn't

hide her feelings.

She doesn't have a pretense of trying to look

more spiritual than she actually is. She is

angry

and she is hurting and she is mourning and

grieving what she has lost. There is a time

to soldier on through pain, but there's also a

time to weep for your loss. And in our culture

,

we have almost forgotten that. Naomi didn't

show any pretense. She was being open and bare

and

mourning to her daughters-in-laws. But how

many times do we go to funerals and experience

loss

in our culture? Our culture does. And they try

to erase the pain, the grief by calling it

just

a memorial service or a celebration of life.

And it's good to remember our loved ones that

have

passed. It's good to celebrate the life they

had, but it's also right to really grieve and

mourn

like Naomi was here. And we're missing that

because we don't want to remember and realize

that death

is real and will be for all of us. As

believers, if you're a Christian, Paul

commands us in Romans

12-15 to rejoice with those who rejoice, to we

ep with those who weep. If you remember from E

cclesiastes,

the preacher tells us in chapter 3 verse 4,

there's a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance. But there

's a Christian way to express these feelings

and not

to sin while we weep and grieve. Paul told the

Thessalonians that we express grief in a

different

way than the world and the unbeliever does.

Chapter 4 verse 13 of 1 Thessalonians, "But we

do not want

you to be uninformed brethren about those who

are asleep, those who have died, so that you

will

not grieve as do the rest who have no hope."

He's not saying you won't so you won't grieve,

period.

He's saying that you don't grieve in the same

way as those who have no hope. We grieve

differently

because we have hope. We don't lie to

ourselves and to each other that this world of

sin and this

world of suffering, this world of pain is all

that there is because we know that there is

something

past this world and that is what gives us hope

. And so we have Orpa and we have Ruth and Orpa

looked at the suffering and she looked at what

Naomi said that there's no hope for her in the

land of

Bethlehem and she didn't have hope either. She

turned back. She started on the path to Beth

lehem

but then she decided to go back to her land of

Moab to find a husband and to worship her old

God.

If she was going to survive she would have to

make her own way. Look at verse 14, "And they

lifted up

their voices and wept again and Orpa kissed

her mother-in-law but Ruth clung to her and

then she

said, 'Behold, this is Naomi, your sister-in-

law has gone back to her people and her gods

return

after your sister-in-law.' They cried some

more. Orpa kissed her mother-in-law on the

cheek and

then she left and that is the last we heard of

Orpa. Maybe she did end up going home and

marrying

again and marrying someone who's wealthy, her

prince charming. Maybe she had a bunch of kids

and

lived happily ever after until old age. We don

't know but we know that she went back to Moab

and she went back to Kimash, her old false

gods instead of Yahweh and the false God Kim

ash could

never offer her true hope and through the end

of this life and into the next. We all have

suffering

that we have to endure. We have to pass

through in in this life that God has given us

and some

suffering is so hard that it brings us to what

we call a crisis of faith. Jesus told the par

able of

the sower in Mark chapter 4. He talked about

the different types of seed as the gospel is

planted

and one of those seeds was sown on rocky

ground and it wasn't able to grow deep roots

and when

the sun came up Christ said that it scorched

the plants and the plants withered away. His

apostles,

his disciples asked him to explain what he

meant by this story in Mark 4.16. He describes

this

this seed that was planted on shallow rocky

ground. He says in a similar way, these are

the ones on

whom seed was sown on the rocky places who

when they hear the word immediately receive it

with joy

but they and they have no firm root in

themselves but are only temporary then when

affliction or

persecution arises because the word

immediately they fall away. This is what

happened to Orpo.

As soon as this true suffering happened to her

she fell away. She had the faith that was

shallow

like this rocky soil. It was only skin deep.

She married a Hebrew and so she followed the

Hebrew

God because that's what her husband did but

when he was taken away her faith left as well

and she

turned back to her old country. We brothers

and sisters need to have faith that's deeper

than

Orpus. If we're going to have faith and go

through this suffering and bring glory to God

through his bitter providences we need to not

turn back like Orpo. When the suffering comes

make sure your faith is deep enough to stand

through the scorching sun of pain and grief.

We get the the truth and the reality of what

God has showed us what Christ has done for us

down

deep into our marrow so that when we are cut

when we we're injured by the suffering of this

life

that the gospel fills our veins again with

hope and faith through the suffering. We we

have faith

but not turning back like Orpo but also by

remaining faithful like Ruth verse 14 through

18

and they lifted up their voices and wept again

and Orpo kissed her mother-in-law but Ruth cl

ung

to her then she said behold your sister-in-law

has gone back to her people and her gods

return

after your sister-in-law but Ruth said do not

urge me to leave you or turn back 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 I will be buried thus may the Lord

do to me

and worse if anything but death parts you and

me and when she saw that she was determined to

go

with her she said no more to her Ruth did the

exact opposite of her sister-in-law Orpo she

also lost her husband she also lost everything

that she had but she committed to go with

Naomi

to the strange land that she didn't know these

are two widows and at this time that was one

of the

hardest lives to live was a life of a widow

with with no husband or family to protect you

to no

governmental programs to get you through the

time of hardship they would have to rely on

what

they could scrounge up for their sustenance

from the goodness of others as we will see in

in the

future but there was something different about

Ruth's response that she would remain faithful

to Naomi no matter what out of out of love but

there is also an air of hope that the way that

she

makes her confession is interesting and and it

has an air of hope in it the author says that

Ruth

clung to Naomi and this is not an

insignificant word this word is used several

times in the Old

Testament and in Genesis the husbands and

wives are to leave their parents homes and

cling to one

another that's the same word the Hebrews were

commanded to cling to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 10

20 you shall fear the Lord your God you shall

serve him and cling to him you shall swear by

his name this is the language of covenant and

and Ruth is using this language that the Moab

itus

that the one who worshipped a Ba'al named Kam

ash is displaying something that is supposed to

be

characteristic of the people of Yahweh that

that she she uh Naomi tries to compel Ruth to

to leave

to to leave her and go back with Orpah but

Ruth would have nothing of it she clung to

Naomi and

then she makes this famous promise to Naomi

and it's the the language of it is very

interesting

verse 16 but Ruth said do not urge me to leave

you or turn back 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 I will

be buried thus may the Lord do to me and worse

if

anything but death parts you and me this is

the language again of covenant if you remember

we

looked at the Abrahamic covenant and what what

God did when he made that covenant with

Abraham he

had Abraham take these animals and and put

them in a row and cut them in half and make a

path between

them and then the the the firepot and then the

torch went between those animals remember and

that signified God making a covenant with

Abraham and if if the picture that is there in

this covenant

ceremony is that if if God were to go back on

his word if he was to to break his promise to

break

his covenant with Abraham and his descendants

may God be sliced in half like those animals

and Ruth says that here where I where you die

I will die and there I will be buried thus may

the Lord do to me and worse if anything but

death parts you and me Ruth said no matter

what happens

I'm sticking with you I'm making this covenant

and and may God kill me if I break my promise

to

you this is a beautiful picture and then she

says where you'll be where you're buried I'll

be buried

not even death is going to separate us there's

a beautiful picture of of real faith that Ruth

had

as she expressed in her clinging and sticking

with Naomi even to the end Ruth isn't in it

for

prosperity or for health she was going into

the unknown in Bethlehem she was going into

what seemed

was a situation with no hope but she promised

and out of of pure love and in care for her

mother-in-law she promised never to leave her

she completely turned away from her old life

and went on to a new life in Bethlehem Naomi

trusted God even in this bitter suffering and

and in her

life and in the past she had pointed Ruth to

her God to Jehovah to Yahweh and one of the

things

that God uses in these suffering times to

bring glorify glory to himself is that our

response

to the suffering and our faith and hope in the

suffering points back to him points back to

his

goodness and how he gets us through these

suffering times if you remember Moses led the

people of

God out of slavery out of Egypt and when they

had gone out of Egypt and through some of the

wilderness they they meet up again with Moses'

father-in-law Jethro in Exodus 18 8 Moses told

his father-in-law all that the Lord had done

to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's

sake

all the hardship that had befallen them on the

journey and how the Lord had delivered them

and this led Jethro to say in a couple verses

later in verse 11 now I know that the Lord is

greater than all the gods indeed it was proven

when they dealt proudly against the people J

ethro

worshipped Yahweh because of Moses' testimony

of the hardship they had in the desert and the

wilderness that God led his people through

Paul the apostle was imprisoned in Rome and he

wrote the

book of the letter to the Philippians and he

said this in chapter 1 verses 12 to 14 now I

want you

to know brethren that my circumstances have

turned out for the greater progress of the

gospel now he

was imprisoned in Rome and but he says his

circumstances are turning out for the greater

progress of the gospel so that my imprisonment

in the cause of Christ has become well known

throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and to

everyone else and that most of the brethren

trusting in the Lord because of my imprison

ment have far more courage to speak the word of

God

without fear how will God use the suffering in

our lives how will God use our response to

that suffering we don't know exactly how God's

going to use those things in every

circumstance

and sometimes we won't even know until we get

to that final hope and glory but we we trust

that he

will and he does in every single circumstance

remember he is not capricious he is not wh

imsical

and and just experimenting with our lives he's

doing everything on purpose and for his glory

and so we look at Ruth's testimony through

this again at this time she didn't know the

end of the

story and how God was going to work it out we

get to see the rest of the story but when we

look at

her faith and the way that she responded to

the suffering in her life and that her love

for Naomi

we can get an example of how we can continue

to have faith even in the bitter providences

that God places in our lives but then we get

the last part of the passage today and we go

back to

Naomi we can continue to have faith by not

listening to the unfaithful around us verses

19

through 22 so they both went until they came

to Bethlehem they made it and when they had

come to

Bethlehem all the city 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

Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me I

went out full

but the Lord has brought me back empty why do

you call me Naomi since the Lord has witnessed

against

me and the Almighty has afflicted me so Naomi

returned and with her Ruth the Moabitis her

daughter-in-law returned from the land of Moab

and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning

of barley harvest Ruth was determined as we

have seen to stay with Naomi until the very

end she

promised her that fact so they make it back to

Naomi's home in Bethlehem and their return

caused

quite a stir among the locals all the the

women gathered around all the gossip said man

Naomi's

back did you hear she has nothing anymore she

lost her husband she lost her sons and and now

she's back this can't be Naomi and for

whatever reason when I read this when I was

studying this

I just picture this this Disney cartoon scene

where all the town people are singing a song

is I don't

know why that that was free that was extra can

you imagine what they were saying maybe you've

been that gossip I can't believe this happened

to Roger Dale or whatever you know people are

talking about you what did they do what what

did Naomi do to deserve this judgment on her

life

maybe she worshiped Kamash in Moab you're not

supposed to go then live in Moab are you I

knew

that when they were left this was going to

happen to to them I said that at the time that

God was

going to punish them it's like that time when

the disciples asked Christ about the man that

was born

blind and said well did he sin or did his

parents sin Naomi responded to them she said

in verse 20

she said that to them do not call me Naomi

call me Mara for the Almighty has dealt very

bitterly

with me I went out full but the Lord has

brought me back empty why do you call me Naomi

since the

Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty

has afflicted me you see the name Naomi means

pleasant it means sweet and happy and

certainly what had happened to her in her life

by by losing

her husband and losing her sons and and coming

back in in poverty wasn't pleasant for her and

so

she said don't call me that anymore call me

Mara Mara means bitter she was not swayed by

the gossip

even though she was hurting in her suffering

but she realized that this has come from Yah

weh

Shaddai God Almighty that's what she says God

has brought me to this the Almighty has has

brought

this to me and she bends the knee even in this

time realizing that the sovereign Almighty God

the the L Shaddai is the one that is is

bringing this in her life Shaddai is is one of

the names

that God revealed to his people through the

Old Testament maybe you've heard L Shaddai

before but

when he was dealing with Abraham when he's

dealing with Isaac and Jacob the the early

fathers of the

the Hebrew people the the Jewish nation he

told he used that name with with Abraham when

he was

promising him a child in his old age he used

it with Jacob when Jacob sent his children

away to

Egypt to get grain because there was a famine

in the land and then he used it with Joseph

when Jacob prophesied that that Joseph would

be fruitful and the code of many colors and he

would

rule over the other sheaves and and if you

remember the story of Joseph Joseph really had

the trust

in this promise everything about the light his

life that happened up until the point of God's

blessing was not pleasant was not fruitful he

went to prison for something he didn't do he

stayed

in prison when he was forgotten there but but

in the end of it God blessed Joseph in a great

way

so when God uses this term Shaddai which means

something like a mountain something immovable

he's expressing something about who he is he's

expressing that that that God is at his best

when we are at our worst and this is the name

that Naomi specifically uses when she's

describing

the the bitter circumstance that that God's

unfolding plan in her life had happened maybe

it seems like Naomi is just being bitter when

she says call me Mara which means bitter and

she's agreeing with the Gossips around her but

I don't think she is I think she's recognizing

that that down here in human responsibility

land from her human perspective that what the

preacher said in Ecclesiastes remember in in

chapter 1 verse 14 he says I've seen all the

works

which have been done under the sun and behold

all is vanity and striving after a wind and

that she

would have to wait for the El Shaddai for Yah

weh Shaddai to to see and learn what the

preacher

himself learned in Ecclesiastes 11 five just

as you do not know the path of the wind and

how

bones are formed in the womb of a pregnant

woman so you do not know the activity of God

who makes

all things you know Rachel makes all kinds of

Rachel my wife not the Rachel of the Bible she

makes all kinds of crafts and all kinds of

things with her hands and it mazes me because

I can't

do any of that everything that I touch is ugly

sometimes the things that she does don't turn

out too well but usually it's something that's

amazing and beautiful but every single thing

that Yahweh Shaddai touches everything he

creates everything he makes in the end turns

out beautiful

and glorious but sometimes they're like the

the tapestries Rachel hasn't made a tapestry

yet

but if you look at the bottom of the tapestry

all you see is this this tangle of seemingly

unrelated

colors and loose ends and knots in it you can

't tell what it's going to be but if you turn

the

tapestry around and look at the top from from

the top you see the beautiful colors and the

beautiful

image that is created by all those loose ends

that don't look like they mean anything on the

bottom

but when you look at at the top everything

comes together and it makes sense and that

Naomi's life

here and that the rest of the book especially

when we get to the last chapter you'll see

that now

we've got the loose ends and tangles in our

life don't call me Naomi call me Mara because

I've been

dealt a bitter hand from the providence of God

but when we get to the end we'll see the glory

of

his plan that affects even us to this day

remember Peter when Christ was taken from the

Garden of

Gethsemane he didn't understand what was

happening before that he told Christ and look

if we go back

to Jerusalem you're just going to throw your

life away what is this all for but after the

resurrection

Peter saw what the reality was and all the

loose ends and and knots that he couldn't

understand

before the resurrection made complete and

perfect sense after the end Ruth said the same

thing

it didn't make sense to her verse 21 I went

out full but the Lord has brought me back

empty why do

you call me Naomi since the Lord has witnessed

against me and the Almighty the should I has

afflicted me and what we'll see as we go

through the rest of the book is how the should

I turns it

around and what we can't make happen he makes

happen the praise God that she didn't listen

to

all those naysayers around her that that

couldn't believe that this was how she ended

they didn't

know the end of the story yet and she had hope

as we'll see through even her suffering our

flock

as brother Kyle called us much of God's word

has been given to us not just to help us

through our

suffering but to point us through our

suffering to our gracious Yahweh should I our

God Almighty

everything that God does is for a reason and

even though it may look like a mess right now

it is on

purpose he is truly working through every

situation that we have as his children

for his glory and this is a call for each of

us as his flock as as brothers and sisters

in his church to to have faith and to rest in

that faith and Yahweh even through times of

pain

to to be like Ruth and cling to him instead of

being like Orpah and turning away and I can't

express enough how the rest of the book if I

can can bring it out of there we'll show that

and it

really is good but if you you don't know

Christ this hope is not yours this suffering

and the

sin of this life is the best you will

experience as Philip said before church so

turn from the old

life and the old gods like Ruth and turn to

the new country and the true God by placing

your faith

in the God who saved the God who provides and

the God who is the rock our L should I let's

pray

Holy Father we praise you and love you for

your goodness and we praise you for your

sovereignty

and I pray that we will learn that even in the

the bitter sovereignty the bitter bitter prov

idence

to to bring you praises thank you for the book

of Ruth thank you for this morning and for

your glory

in Christ's name amen