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