Sermon Nuggets Ruth 1 Love Story
Verses Ruth 1: 1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
2 The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
A Love Story
A Minister was planning to do a wedding following a morning church service. After the benediction he had planned to call the couple down to be married for a brief ceremony, but he just couldn’t think of their names. “Will those wanting to get married please come to the front”. He requested.
Immediate 6 single ladies, three widows and 2 men stepped forward.
I decided to review the book of Ruth these next four weeks and look at different aspects of love. This was one of the favorite books of the Hebrew young women as they dreamed of being a blessed wife.
The first characteristic of love that I think chapter one illustrates is loyalty. It is an admirable characteristic. But more important than loyalty is the object or the one to whom loyalty is directed. Top on our list ought to be God. It is an admirable trait to be loyal to your spouse, loyal to your country, but one ought to rethink loyalty if it leads to sin. What about those loyal to Saddam Hussein, or Adolph Hitler, though admirable is also damning. The code of loyalty and silence among the mafia, or Al Quada is important, but ungodly.
The book of Ruth not only teaches us about love, but about the sovereignty of God and His decision to use a foreigner, a Moabite, a woman for his greater plans. Ruth is to be the grandmother of King David making her part of the kingly line. It shows that even in the OT God does love people regardless of race, color, education, or gender.
But we shall see how God lifts up and honors this woman, Ruth.
When Benjamin Franklin was the Ambassador to France, he occasionally attended the Infidels Club -- a group that spent most of its time searching for and reading literary masterpieces. On one occasion Franklin read the book of Ruth to the club, but changed all the names and places in it so it would not be recognized as a book of the Bible. When he finished, the listeners were unanimous in their praise. They said it was one of the most beautiful short stories that they had ever heard, and demanded that he tell them where he had run across such a remarkable work of art. He enjoyed telling them that it came from the Bible!
This story takes place during the period of the Judges. In Israel’s day after they had conquered the land with their leader, Joshua, they settled down in their various allotted places according to the tribes. Within a generation devotion to the Lord dwindled. Judges were appointed to rule over disputes, but it wasn’t that effective. Samson was a Judge and we remember what kind of problems he had. So it was said of the period in Judges 17:6 ”In those days there was no king in Israel , but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
God said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The family of this story is the family of Elimelech who fled to Moab with his two teenaged sons and his wife, Naomi, apparently for economic reasons. He could get food and a job. People relocate for lots of reasons. Those are good reasons, but one must also ask is it God’s will? Some are looking for better jobs, more money, advancement, greener pastures, better climate or education. All of that is fine, but what does God want for you? Do you pray about where the Lord would have you live, or go to school, or work?
There is always a struggle of living for the Lord and doing what He wants when we live among people and work with folks for whom godly values are non existent. One must ask how much the culture around us influences us, or how much do we influence the culture around it. There was a reason God instructed His people not to marry foreign women. There is a reason God’s word says not to be unequally yoke with unbelievers.
There are challenges and consequences that could be avoided. But there are also occasions were a faithful witness can be use by God’s grace to show His love and acceptance.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues Aug 23 Commitment
Verses- 3 Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.
4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.
7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
9 May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband." Then she kissed them and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people."
11 But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?
Love is demonstrated by Commitment
The story is unfolded. There was a draught in Israel and specifically felt in Bethlehem. It was not uncommon for God also to judge his people through circumstances like this as a wake up call to repentance. Sometimes God would use other foreign nations and pagan nations to success as victories as a judgment against God’s people.
There are a lot of innocent people that pay for the mistakes of others and their quick decisions. Some consequences cannot be reversed. Elimelech took his family to Moab, rather than be under the general judgment of God and was able to get bread and his two sons married Moabite women. It is interesting to realize what their names meant.
“Chilion- means one who life has reached its term or limits or pining away. Mahlon means sickly or diseased. Perhaps it was a product of the consequences, we do not know, but all three men died, Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion, and they didn’t have any children and all three widows within that 10 years people of time were destitute.
In biblical times a woman depended on her husband or sons to provide for her. Without men she was forced to beg on the streets and rely on the kindness of others, similarly to what we have seen in modern day Afghanistan under the Taliban rule.
What caught my attention was the way in which how much the daughters-in-law love Naomi. That doesn’t always happen in relationships. What happens when one marries someone that you as a parent don’t approve of. What should your reaction be? Disown them? Have nothing to do with them? Let them know they have made a mistake and now must live with it?”
What I see in his passage is that Ruth and Orpah had such a respect and love for Naomi I think it must be how she treated and reacted to her daughters-in-law. Naomi loved her God, her husband and her sons. She loved Israel. But she apparently showed and demonstrated her love for her daughters in law. Maybe they were not who she wanted her sons to marry. But she apparently showed them kindness as well.
Instead of the influence of the Moabites on the faith of this family, Naomi’s faith apparently influenced these young women. They accepted Jehovah of Israel. When Naomi heard about the Lord visiting Bethlehem again with bread she decided to go back to her people, her land, her God and having a concern for the daughters in law tried to think what was best for them. Unselfishly she told them to go back to their families as well. She didn’t have anything to offer them and they would be in a situation perhaps of getting marriage again and gaining a family.
Knowing what she knew of the laws of Israel there was also not a likelihood that they would marry Moabite women with Israelite girls around.
The commitment I see is Naomi to her husband when they leave to a foreign land. And of Ruth to Naomi who won’t leave her alone. Commitment is part of love. It is also important part of marriage. It is more than a feeling. It is a decision to stick with another through the ups and downs of life. It may not mean always agreeing with the other, but seeking to do what is best for the relationship because the other person or people matter.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds Aug 24 Challenges
Verses- Ruth 1:12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me-- even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons--13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!"
14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
15 "Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."
16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Love is demonstrated through Challenges
Any commitment is usually challenged. We might commit to something or someone but the depth of that commitment is revealed when things in life get hard. When there is temptation, when there are hard times. When we make a commitment to something how dedicated are we to stick to that commitment and what might be reasons to go back on promises?
Although I value the importance of commitment I must say commitment to the wrong cause deserves to be broken. If someone makes a sinful promise it would be wrong before God to keep that commitment. If someone is committed to worship a family idol and presented with the truth of Jesus Christ, it would be important to repent and commit to truth.
So it does take thought, prayer and re-evaluation when we are challenged to reconsider our decisions.
Women in the Bible days have a very rough life. We see some societies that are male dominated where women have very little or no rights.
I caught the end of one of the TV news magazine stories recently where a male passenger on an airplane from the Muslim background was sitting next to a Muslim woman. She asked the man a simple question. He became furious with her and publicly rebuked her for a woman is not allowed to speak to a man unless she is spoke to first. We might find those customs odd in our world, but this similar to the world also in which Ruth lived. Not Muslim, but definitely patriarchal. Women were not given many rights. There are some societies in which there are no rights. The woman is told who to marry and what her responsibilities are to be a good wife.
The challenge to their commitment started with the death of their husbands and these women realized they had great needs, not only in love but protection and provision in a society that could abuse them. The daughters-in-law loved Naomi and she in turn loved them. But without resources they had to rethink their commitment. They had to make a choice to follow Naomi back to a foreign country for them with this new God that is suppose to have all things in his hands. Or they were to choose to go to material security by returning to find a husband and children and positions among their own people? One road seemed bright and secure, the other road seemed unsure and scary and new. They had no idea what the future would hold. Both out of their love and devotion to Naomi did not want to leave her, but she made them rethink and look at the situation of what would be best for them.
You see there is a cultural code in that day for widows (Ex 22:22 and Deut 10:18) It talks about the care of widow and the Hebrew way. It had to do with a Levirate marriage, which meant a dead man’s brother was to marry the widow to provide her security and give her children to carry on the family name and inheritance. But Naomi had no more sons and she said You will not wait for me to have a son and grow up to marry you. So Naomi wanted them to find what she had lost- security safety and home.
Orpah though about her challenges among a people foreign to her and vulnerability in that environment and realized as going back to her people and her gods was a better option. She apparently made a start in spiritual matters but like so often happens it is circumstances that cause people to turn away from their commitment and their decision to go back to their former way of living. They knew evil and sin. The prospect of security, a husband, material provisions influenced her even though she was sad to say goodbye.
The road of faith to follow the Lord gives no promise of home, give no assurance of security. Like the seed that falls on thorny or rocky soil there are challenges good and bad to our Christian life. Many will go back on their commitment. For some to give their lives to Jesus and love him might mean giving up a job, or a home to follow him. Love is force to decide between convenience and personal pleasures and interest to pleasing the one whom you love.
2 Tim 4:20 says, “Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.”” Orpah was to become a wife again. Ruth also faced the same challenge. One never hears about more about Orpah, whereas Ruth is spoken through all the history as part of Christ’s ancestry.
How has your love commitment been challenged?
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs Aug 25 Choices
Verses Ruth 1: 16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Love is demonstrated by Choices
Challenges that come to evaluate love will result in some choices we make. Commitment is also a choice. When people stand to take a wife or a husband they are choosing to make a vow of loyalty to each other in life.
We are like Ruth in that we are aliens and strangers in this land. Eph 2 says, “Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with Gods’ people and members of God’s household” We can become part of God’s household by making that important choice- to make him our God and give to him our allegiances. We were born into sin. That was Ruth’s situation. We were lost and part of people apt from God. Yet by Gods grace he continued to work out the details in our lives and he did so in Ruth’s life. For there is a turning away from her background and choose to live with Naomi and follow the Lord
Many people might talk about being a Christian and go to church, but there has been no choice to turn from sin. They have never changed direction of their lives. They are never making Christ Lord and master of their lives.
Orpah chose to return to her land and her people, which was pagan. Ruth chose to turn her back on her past and express her love to Naomi by going with her wherever she went.
How much do we love Jesus? Knowing we are loved by Christ and receiving the promises of being in His care we also choose to love, but where will that love lead us? For Ruth her choice was to leave her race, her cultural adjustment, receive discrimination, giving up an old friends and go with her mother-in-law.
That as the call of Joshua who said, “Choose this day whom you will serve”.
That is the call of Christ. “He who is not for me is against me” ”He who confessed me before men him also will I confess before my father. He who does not confess me before me, neither will I confess him before my father.” That is what love is -a commitment and with this commitment come choices if we are going to follow and remain faithful to our vows.
It was God who broke the famine and opened the way home (1:6). It was God who preserved a kinsman to continue Naomi's line (2:20). And it was God who constrains Ruth to stay with Naomi. But Naomi is so embittered by God's hard providence that she can't see his mercy at work in her life. She needed someone to love her as well.
Ruth's commitment to her destitute mother-in-law is simply astonishing. "Where you die I will die and there be buried" (v. 17). In other words, she will never return home, not even if Naomi dies. "Your God will be my God" (v. 16).
Naomi has just said in verse 13, "The hand of the Lord has gone forth against me." Naomi's experience of God was bitterness because of her circumstances. But in spite of this, Ruth forsakes her religious heritage and makes the God of Israel her God. Perhaps she had made that commitment years before, when her husband told her of the great love of God for Israel and his power at the Red Sea and his glorious purpose of peace and righteousness. Somehow or other Ruth had come to trust in Naomi's God in spite of Naomi's bitter experiences. Her love required some choices as does yours.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Fri Aug 26 Caring
Verses- Ruth 1: 16 But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."
18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?"
20 "Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.
21 I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Love is demonstrated by Caring.
Even though commitment is the core of love, yet you can’t hardly love without showing care. It is the core of commitment. If we are committed to another we will care about them.
Ruth’s shows her caring spirit by making Naomi’s hardships her hardships. And so links herself to the surviving member of the family of Elimelech because it is the right and responsible thing to do to care for the one in need.
Unfortunately we see laws forcing fathers to pay for the needs of their children when they divorce. Many mothers only care for their needs and wants and children are neglected.
As Christians we are also called to love not just our family, but those around us. We are to care for the poor, the disadvantaged, those who experience injustice. Caring for others is a mark of a Christian because it is a mark of Jesus.
Ruth showed her responsibility to the devotions of Naomi and demonstrated true love and loyalty by seeking to care for her and yet she didn’t have to. She showed humility in taking on that responsibly. “Where you go, I will go.” Is the caring expressed by saying my life’s direction is in your hand. Or “where thou lodge I will lodge.” Lodging is supplying the basic needs. It is the understanding what is important isn’t the house, it is the person and people within that house. Treasure your family while you have them. To feed, cloth and shelter, is not enough. It is to care, to love and help them with various and appropriate support as needed.
“Your people will be my people.” That commitment of caring is saying that people of God will now become my people. I will so dedicate myself to share and become one with them- The community of God is now the church, not the Israeli community. It is to say yes to a Christian, saying yes to brother and sister in the Lord. Friends change, People change, and this now becomes a new spiritual family. It involves caring for one another hand devoting each other to the tasks around us under the direction of the father. “Your God be my god. That is the essence of message. I will continue in my walk with Jehovah God. I will make him my God and the Lord, this is a prayer may be punished me if that isn’t true. Whether thou will die, I will die”, indicates the commitment for life, there I’ll be buried. We become involved in the business of the Kingdom and realize this graciousness unto the end. The commitment caring and helping is life-long. It is a final and complete one until he calls us home.
Naomi passed final judgment on herself and on the Lord before the Lord finished. Our mistake is that we single out some experience and then judge god by this alone, wondering why he allowed it. It is easily we forget His many blessings and benefits to us.
Ruth and Naomi came at the beginning of the barley harvest that is the spring that is the first crop as the first chapter ends. It shows the scene as all seems lost, but it isn’t, for now the glimmer of hope shines. There is something that is coming.
The problem with Naomi is that she has forgotten the story of Joseph who also went into a foreign country. He was sold as a slave. He was framed by an adulteress and put in prison. He had every reason to say, with Naomi, "The Almighty has dealt bitterly with me." But he kept his faith and God turned it all for his personal good and for Israel's national good. The key lesson in Genesis 50:20 is this: "As for you, you meant it for evil against me [Joseph says to his brothers]; but God meant it for good." Naomi is right to believe in a sovereign almighty God who governs the affairs of nations and families and gives each day its part of pain and pleasure. But she needs to open her eyes to the signs of his merciful purposes.
Not only the spring harvest but Naomi needs to open her eyes to Ruth. What a gift! What a blessing! Yet as she and Ruth stand before the people of Bethlehem Naomi says in verse 21, "The Lord has brought me back empty." Not so, Naomi! You are so weary with the night of adversity that you can't see the dawn of rejoicing. What would she say if she could see that in Ruth she would gain a man-child and that this man-child would be the grandfather of the greatest king of Israel and that this king of Israel would foreshadow the King of kings, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe?
The Author of love is Jesus Christ who showed his commitment to us while we were sinners Christ died for us. He chose us even before the world began. He cares for us.
Pastor Dale
