TO BETHLEHEM

Ruth 1:1-22

Key Verse 1: 19a

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem

The passage for today reveals to us that the Lord is a good shepherd for his children. As a good shepherd he guides his children to green pastures where they can find peace and comfort, rest and hope. They can have their lives to the full. [In the passage the word “Lord” is repeated seven times. Ruth is such an attractive woman, so it is easy for us to get distracted and pay attention to her. Let us focus however on the Lord who found Ruth and led her to Bethlehem, the house of bread for eternal life where our Lord Jesus was born.]

One of the keys to a blessed life here on earth is to know the Lord as the good shepherd and follow him closely all the days of one’s life. But this is not as easy as it seems. The Prophet Isaiah recognized this truth and said, “We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6a). 

Ruth sets a good example of what it is to cling to the Lord and follow him closely. 

Let us think about how the people (in Israel) of Ruth’s day went astray and yet how Ruth heard the voice of the shepherd, clung to him, and took possession of the blessings that come from the Lord. 

I. In the days when the judges ruled  

1) People lived by sight rather than by faith in the Lord and ran intro troubles

Look at verse 1. “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land…” This expression is linked to the last verse of the book of Judges which is located right in front of the book of Ruth. Judges 21:25 reads, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” All Scripture is God-breathed, meaning it came from the mouth of God. God is spirit. So the word “king” in verse 25 denotes more than a political king; it refers to a spiritual king. It refers to the Father God who leads his children as a good shepherd, leading the flock to green pastures. In order to lead his people, the Lord God even made man in his image. He designed man in such a way that man would be not just a physical being but a spiritual being who knows how to discern the voice of his shepherd and follow the voice of the shepherd. 

But the people (in Israel) of Ruth’s day did not pay attention to the Lord God, the Creator and their redeemer. Rather, everyone lived as he or she saw fit. 

What happened to them? Again, verse 1 says, “…there was a famine in the land…” This statement is followed by the terrible disasters that are described in chapters 17-21 of the book of Judges. It began with a son stealing from his mother’s wallet, and a mother making an idol god for her son. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. (1Ti 6:10) The root of the problem of the people of Ruth’s day was more intricate than just the love of money or idol worship. Basically, their problem was living by sight, not by faith in the Lord. As they continued as each person’s eyes saw fit, they ended up bringing total chaos to the whole nation. They filled the society with all kinds of disasters, such as rape, sodomy, and mass killings (not among different people but among fellow brethren). The net result of everyone living as his eyes saw fit was a famine hitting the land. Notice that this famine was not “God-made” but man-made. Because the people rendered their environment unsafe, they could no longer go out and do their daily businesses with due diligence, for it was no longer safe for even a farmer to go out and farm, or for a shepherd to go out and tend his flock safely. Naturally, people’s mind became devastated. They lost the desire to do anything productive. Obviously, food became rare. Gas prices went up. People started panicking which resulted in the stock market crashing to the floor. And the economy went south real fast. A famine hit the land. 

People did not live by faith in the Lord, but by sight. And this caused them to run into all kinds of troubles. 

2) Elimelech lived by sight, not by faith in God’s promise and thereby ran into trouble

Elimelech, in the passage, fell victim to this unbelieving environment. He lived in Bethlehem in Judah. He married a wife named Naomi. The name “Naomi” means “Pleasant”. So it is certain that he might have been enjoying a pleasant marriage life with her. To make him happier, his wife produced two sons! Two sons! What a blessing! In addition, his name “Elimelech” means “To me a king shall come”. He is also known as an Ephrathite, which in Hebraic tradition is a synonym for being a member of a royal family line. After all he is a man from the line of Judah from whose family line the Messiah was to come. 

Yet, when a famine hit the land he did not live by faith in the Lord but by sight. He let the circumstances dictate him. Look at verses 1b-2. “…a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.  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.” In verse 21, Naomi says, “I went away full.” The word “full” indicates that Elimelech sold a lot of valuables and turned them into cash. He escaped to a foreign land. At that time as one of the community leaders, he could have encouraged people to repent, turn to the Lord, and do something to support one another, and thereby overcome difficulties. But instead he abandoned his fellow brethren. He adopted Cain’s philosophy: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9) Together with his wife and his two sons, he conveniently escaped to the land of Moab. This little observation indicates that this man was an escape artist. He was not a man of faith. When everything went smoothly he looked like a man of faith. Even his name Elimelech, “To me a king shall come,” sounds spiritual. But when difficulties arrived his true colors were revealed. He had no faith at all. He chose to live by sight. When he lost faith, he failed as a leader, even as the head of a household. Instead of him dictating his environment, he let the circumstances such as the famine dictate him. 

How did he do in Moab? Look at verse 3. “Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.” When we compare this verse with verses 4 and 5, it is not difficult to see that the man died almost immediately after escaping from his home town. We don’t know why he died so quickly. Maybe in the course of running away from the land of promise to a foreign land he got so stressed out that he suffered from a heart attack.  

What about the rest of his family? Look at verses 4-5. “They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.”  It is interesting that the two couples could not bear any children for the first ten years of their marriage. Think about the married couples in Downey UBF. All of them are very fruitful. For example, right before the Fall Bible conference the Lord God added to us three powerful daughters: Josephine Lee, Leah Larsen, and Joanna Yoon! But even after ten years of marriage, they produced no children. Not only that, both sons died. Coincidence? Well, you think about it. Perhaps having gone through three funerals in a foreign land, Naomi must have thought about these tragedies a lot. And she had this to say: “The Lord’s hand has gone out against me!” From a biblical perspective, however, it is safe to say that when one goes away from the guiding hands of the Lord, the good shepherd, one runs into trouble. King David, the great grandson of Ruth, said it right when he said in Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” This passage indicates that if one does not listen to the Lord and goes astray from him, one will end up in a sticky situation. 

II. The Lord had come to the aid of his people

1) Although people grew rebellious, and went astray, the Lord God did not abandon them in their miseries, but rather in his long patience, mercy, and love, he had come to the aid of his people.

Look at verse 6. “When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them…” The Lord could have abandoned them saying, “Look, you went astray, and this is what you’ve got. I told you, and you are on your own.” Rather the Lord God had mercy on them. He came to the aid of his people by providing food for them. This reminds us of the way the risen Lord Jesus Christ visited Simon Peter not just once or twice but thee times. The previous Sunday we listened to Shepherd Terry Peter who testified to the great love of Jesus for his failing disciples. Love never fails. People may abandon the Lord, but the Lord never abandons his people. 

2) Naomi repented and decided to go back to the life that follows the Lord and his guidance.

Look at verses 6b-7. “Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 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.” After going through three funerals in a row, and after going through other difficulties such as an extended period of unemployment, with no family members earning the bread, all of her financial resources must have run out. In order to survive, she must have sold all of the valuable items in the house to buy groceries. Then by the time she heard that the local economy in her home town started picking up, she prepared herself to return home. 

Although v. 6b uses the word “prepared,” there was not that much to prepare physically. In the first place, they did not have that much to pack up. All they needed was to call the local telephone company and disconnect the service, or to leave with the local post office a forwarding address. That was about it. But to prepare her mind spiritually was not an easy thing to do. She had to swallow up her sense of shame and guilt. She had to admit all of her past failures. And she had to curb her pride. 

One good thing was that there was no more male leadership above her. Because all of the men had died, Naomi became the decision maker. In the past, when Elimelech said, “Let us go,” all she had to say was, “Okay.” But now he is dead. So she had to think independently. She made a decision on her own. Her decision was “to return home.” And it was a right decision, for it was a decision to return to not just a physical home but a spiritual home town. Bethlehem was the town of the bread of life, not just physical bread but spiritual bread. 

3) Ruth learned of the Lord from Naomi and decided to follow Naomi her shepherdess and the Lord God whom Naomi worshiped

The Bible consists of 66 books. Of the 66 books there are only two books that bear a woman’s name: Ruth and Esther. As the name of the book of Ruth suggests, Ruth is the heroine of the book. She is the star. She is the embodiment of true love, true devotion, true loyalty, and most importantly, true faith. Not all that glitters is gold. Likewise, not all who say, “Oh, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus,” are true Christians. Some are fair-weather Christians, some social-well fare Christians, some part time Christians, and not all are true Christians, for a true Christian means a man who truly belongs to Christ, a man who has genuine faith, the faith which has been tested and proven genuine through trials and hardships. And Ruth is a woman of genuine faith. She is a model of a true Christian. 

Here is the question: How did she acquire such a great faith? Who influenced her? Who is her shepherdess? She is a Moabite woman! She is a descendant of a man named Moab, an unbeliever. Yet, how come she came out to be a woman of such great faith? 

Only one explanation is persuasive: Naomi’s good influence. She had Naomi as her good shepherdess. The name Naomi means “pleasant”. As her name suggests she must be pleasant to be around. She must have been a cheerful woman. The way she talked to her daughter-in-law indicates that she was very considerate of other’s wellbeing. She was mindful of others’ interests, even in times of personal tragedy. In addition, each time she opened her mouth, she began her conversations with the word “Lord,” such as, “May the Lord show kindness to you…” or, “May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” What a spiritual woman?!

Having lived with her mother in law in the same house and worked together with her in a kitchen, in a laundry room, in fields, or in local super markets like 99 cents store or Ralph’s for over a decade, she must have listened to Naomi her shepherdess. In Romans 10:14, the Apostle Paul asks, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?” Certainly she heard about the Lord from Naomi. And through hearing, faith in the Lord arose in her. 

What then shows that she had a faith that was genuine? In what respect can we say that her faith is truly genuine? Seven things can be said. 

a) Her faith is genuine because she decided against the temptation to go back to and indulge in her old ways of life as a Moabitess. 

Look at verse 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.’” Here, “your mother’s home,” means the old ways of life as adopted by the Moabites in general. At that time the Moabites were idol worshipers. They worshiped all kinds of idol gods and on many occasions their worship services involved lewdness and licentiousness, promoting sexual immorality. But Ruth decided not to go back. She decided to go forward. In Luke 9:62, Jesus said to one of his followers: "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." As Jesus said, she did not look back to her old ways of life. She set a good example of a good disciple who is called to forget what is behind and press on towards the goal marked out for each person. 

b) She decided to follow the Lord spurning the temptation to find rest in the home of another husband

Look at verses 9-13. “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 and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people." 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? 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- would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them?” 

A lot of people come to a church fellowship with mixed motives, like the motive to be a better person, or the motive to find a marriage partner who would not give him or her hard times. Sisters look for a husband who would not beat her; brothers look for a wife who would be very obedient to him all the time, or would stick around even when he loses his job. These motives are not necessarily bad. And in fact we must pray to establish spiritual marriages between believing couples who understand what it is to commit oneself in marriage. 

Again, marriage is not a small matter. It is a very important issue for everyone. Being a woman, Naomi knew how important marriage is to a woman, even to a woman who has been widowed. So she urged each of them to go back to their mother’s land, where she knew that each of them had a better chance of getting married again, and thereby find rest in the house of another husband. 

But, despite Naomi’s strong, persuasive urge, Ruth decided against this option. She did not calculate. She chose to turn to the Lord even sacrificing her desire for marriage. This is a noble decision. She has the image of Mother Barry who sacrificed her desire for marriage, all for the sake of serving the Lord fully. 

c) She decided to turn to the Lord even after recognizing that the life under the Lord might involve a lot of discipline and chastisement

Look at verse 13b. “No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!" The test of marriage existed on a human level. Without herself knowing it, through Naomi the Lord God put Ruth through a test which existed on a spiritual level. The Lord God trains his children by putting them through hardships and trials. In the Bible passage we have just read, Naomi said what is very important: “The Lord’s hand has gone out against me!” Ruth knew exactly what she meant, for she herself went through the severe hand of the Lord. Yet, the remainder of her roadside conversation with her shepherdess Naomi tells us that still she decided to turn to the Lord. This indicates that she was willing to receive training from the Lord. She was ready to go through a discipleship training program under the Lord! What a noble lady do we have?

d) She decided to follow the Lord even when one of her close friends finally decided to stop following the Lord and go back to her old way of life

Look at verse 14. “At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.” Orpah has been one of the closest friends to Ruth. After all she was in the same situation as Ruth. So in times of difficulties, she could share hard feelings with her and get some relief. To Ruth, Orpah was like one of the common-life brothers or sisters. In fact she was her only remaining common life sister. But at a critical moment, Orpah decided to leave the common life. It was one of the major blows to Ruth’s faith life. Yet, verse 14 says, “She clung to her.” She decided to stick around. 

e) In following the Lord she did not separate the Lord from the Lord’s servants, the Lord’s people, their culture and certainly their lifestyle 

Look at verses 15-16. “"Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her." 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.” 

Many people say, “Look! You are not the only one who serves God.” Or, “There are many different ways to serve God.” Or, “Look! God is not only in your church. God is every where. Be broad-minded!” Or, “I leave you but not God.” 

These people separate God from the people of God. They tend to tear apart people from their culture as well. 

But Ruth did not do that. 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.” She refused to separate Naomi from the God of Naomi. She refused to separate the God of Naomi from the people of God, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She did not separate God’s people from their life-styles such as the food they eat or the place they live. 

Ruth’s decision then reminds us of Mother Barry who at the age of 25 went to Korea, lived among Koreans, slept on a hard floor, spoke the Korean language, ate kimchi, and taught the Bible to Korean students. 

f) Her commitment to follow the Lord extended beyond death 

Look at verse 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.” Here Ruth talks about something very serious: death and burial. These remarks indicate that her commitment to the Lord was not a temporal one but an eternal one. 

In John’s gospel chapters 14-17, especially in chapter 15 (the teachings about the vine and branch) Jesus explains to his disciples the same concept, that is, our relationship with Jesus should not be a temporal one but an eternal one. Once we are born into the family of God, we remain so to eternity. Ruth understood this concept. And she made her commitment to the Lord, expressing her faith which extends to eternity.

g) Finally she got an A+ in her test of faith in the Lord

Look at verse 18. “When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.” Without herself knowing, Ruth was being tested by the Lord. And without Naomi knowing what she was doing, she ended up being used as an instrument to test Ruth’s faith. What was the result of the test? She passed the test. She demonstrated her determination to follow the Lord no matter what. She got an A+. She became worthy of becoming the great grand mother of King David.

III. The barley harvest

Verses 19-29 are an epilogue. Look at the passage. “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?’ ‘Don't call me Naomi,’ she told them. ‘Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 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.’ So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.” Naomi said what is negative about her past life in Moab in the Lord. But her point is simple: as she went astray, she reaped nothing but emptiness, but in his mercy the Lord God brought her back, only to turn her emptiness into God’s fullness. The sign of the Lord’s desire to bless her life based on her decision to come back to the Lord is expressed in a rather poetic way, that is, “the barley harvest was beginning.” 

Conclusion: 

In the passage we see a family leaving Bethlehem for a foreign land. In the foreign land troubles beset them. The Lord attracted them to come back home. And indeed through the leadership of Naomi, both Naomi and Ruth came home. They were like two stray sheep, finally coming back home. They heard the voice of their good shepherd the Lord God Almighty. There were many temptations and other difficulties not to come back to the Lord. But through God’s grace, they came back home. Just as in the day of Ruth so also in our own day the Lord remains the same: the good shepherd leading his people. May the Lord bless us to put absolute trust in the Lord’s total goodness, and follow him to the end. And let us do so together with his people, the people with whom the Lord identifies himself. 

One word: To Bethlehem

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