Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sin, Suffering Single Ladies, and Sovereign Kindness (Ruth 1:1-6) *

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on November 8, 2009/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org 

 

Ruth 1 /1 //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. 2 //The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah.

Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.

3 //Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.

4 //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 ten years.

5 //Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and the woman was bereft of her two children and her husband.

/

 

Ruth is a little book with a big message of a Big God who was and is and is to come, and always will be, a God of sovereign kindness.

It is not always easy to see through eyes blurred by life’s burdens and pain, but despite suffering, despite sin, despite circumstances that shake the faith of believers and make them ask “why?” at times, God’s sovereign kindness is constantly providentially lovingly personally graciously intimately involved in every event of our everyday lives by God’s ever-present yet invisible hands.

There may be no better or more beautiful illustration of God’s providence than this little tender story that takes two ladies from tragedy to triumph.

It’s a touching and moving short story (only 84 verses but full of big truth), well-loved by many, a love story, a drama, a story of redemption.

It’s a true story that is a vivid visual picture of the greatest story ever told, that we love to tell, picturing the old, old story, of Jesus and His love, from the Old Testament.

‘The book of Ruth is nothing short of a literary masterpiece [of course inspired by God of true events].

In the 18th century Dr. Samuel Johnson, a Christian, read a copy of Ruth before a prestigious London book review club and did so as if it were a recently written work.

The club was vocal and unanimous in its praise of this new work.

It was only after their acclaim abated that Dr. Johnson inform them that the masterpiece they had so unreservedly endorsed was to be found in a book they all rejected—the Bible! … we see that Ruth’s literary genius is recognized even by those with no Christian allegiance.

A very similar story is told of Benjamin Franklin who while serving at the French court heard some aristocrats denigrating Holy Bible as not worth reading, lacking style, etc.

Although Franklin was not a born again believer (as best can be discerned from written descriptions of his beliefs), he had been sufficiently exposed to the merits of Scripture as literature that he foisted the following … on the French skeptics.

Franklin proceeded to copy Ruth in longhand, changing all the names to French names.

He then read the manuscript to the aristocratic elitists who to a man praised the elegance and simple style of the touching story.

One then queried Franklin “But where did you find this gem of literature, Monsieur Franklin?”

Franklin quipped "It comes from that Book you so despise, la sainte Bible!”[1]

I want to encourage you to try and look at these opening verses tonight as if you’ve never read them before, as if you don’t know the rest of the story.

Try and put yourselves in Naomi’s shoes.

Everything in the life of Naomi unravels in the first 5 verses of this book.

There are 3 funerals in 3 just verses (v.

3-5), not just 1 tragedy, but 3 on top of each other, compounding her grief.

All 3 of her immediate family members she loved were taken away from her, and it’s recorded here in cold print as if to portray the cold effect of this anguish.

Can you imagine losing all you hold dear in such a relatively short period of time?

Your spouse is gone, and a huge part of your heart died at the same time, and the pain stubbornly doesn’t feel like it will ever go away, it’s a knife that stabbed, then turned again, then again.

I can’t pretend to know what Naomi felt like but try to grasp what’s taking place here.

She has buried her beloved, and then before long she has to bury one of her sons!

And then her only remaining son and family member dies and she buries him, too!

The literary camera is zooming in, as it were, to Naomi’s face …

 

William Cowper wrote some beautiful hymns in our hymnal, like “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood” … but he also had dark times of deep depression, even contemplating suicide at times, battling despair in ways you might be surprised to know a true Christian struggles in, because few talk about it.

His emotions knew what it was like to be tossed to and fro and battered by waves on the sea of life.

He went through spiritual droughts and storms and dreaded dark clouds.

He believed God’s kind providence and faithfulness, but felt God was frowning on him in his experience.

Ruth 1:1 begins with a famine in the time of the judges, which was also a very dark time in Israel’s history, a time of sin, suffering, and spiritual famine and dryness along with physical famine.

In fact, if you read back just one page in your Bible, the very last verse of Judges (21:25) says: /In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes./

In that setting, some of God’s remnant of believers struggled like Cowper.

Some asked why of God, where is God, does He care?

Is He there?

I thought God promised blessing for the Promised Land?

Why is there a famine?

Why is there so much sin going on and it seems like God isn’t doing anything about it?

Why do His own people suffer so much, and our godless enemies seem to prosper?

God was where He had always been, doing what He always does, working His sovereign purposes patiently beyond what man sees, but Israel’s emotions needed to catch up with their theology, as one of my good young pastor friends shared with me recently that good advice he received when he was diagnosed with Multiple Scleroris … “Jean-Paul, you need to give it some time to let your emotions catch up with your theology.”

We’ll see that dynamic in the story of Ruth, which more than one writer has argued could really be the story of Naomi.

Actually I think it’s really the story of … God.

William Cowper wrote a hymn that really expresses this book’s theme in wonderful ways:

/God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;/

/He plants His footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm./

/Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill/

/He treasures up His bright designs And works His sovereign will./

/Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread/

/Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head./

/Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace;/

/Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face …/

In v. 1-6 we see sin, suffering single ladies & sovereign kindness

 

*SIN *

/1 //Now it came about in the days when the judges governed …/

/ /

The first line of this book is a little like the first line of one Charles Dickens book “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” … except, in for Israel, it was really more “the worst of times”!

In our English Bible, there is an intentional placing of Ruth right after Judges, so that you read this line on the backdrop of a bleak book that doesn’t end on a very encouraging note: “sin, sin, and more sin – everyone doing whatever they wanted, whatever was right in their own eyes, a moral relativism, no king, no standards.”

If you read through the book of Judges you can appreciate the historical darkness and depressing sinful setting that shows the need for a redeemer as pictured in Ruth.

One writer sums up the downward spiral through Judges (sin – judgment – repentance – deliverance – rest à sin again, etc.…):

            ‘As the Book of Judges progresses … there is a change in the nature of the deliverers who are sent and the deliverance God’s people receive.

The first judge, Othniel, is a squeaky-clean hero.

The last judge, Samson [though, seemed often more naughty than Nazarite as pledged at birth, since he] … systematically breaks every vow that was made on his behalf.

Instead of avoiding contact with everything dead, he scoops honey from the corpse of a lion (Judg.

14:9).

Instead of avoiding contact with the Philistines, he wants to marry one (Judg.

14:1-2).

Instead of avoiding fermented drinks, he participates in a drinking party with his future Philistine in-laws (Judg.

14:10) … The final chapters of the Book of Judges (Judg.

17-21) … show us in graphic detail a nation that had comprehensively lost its way, becoming every bit as bad as the pagan nations that were the previous inhabitants of the Promised Land.

Except for those times when God periodically sent a deliverer to rescue his people and turned their hearts back toward him, the days of the judges were a bleak, dark time of disobedience on the part of God’s people.

Such disobedience was inevitably followed by God’s judgment resting upon their land, just as the covenant with Moses had threatened (Deut.

28[incl.

famine]).’[2]

It’s on this black canvas background context that the jewel of God’s Providence shines more brightly in multi-faceted brilliance.

v.

*1b* … /And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons.// 2 //The name of the man was Elimelech …/

/ /

This Hebrew man Elimelech apparently came from a religious family (El = God, melech = King; his name = “my God is King”).

But the question is was he living up to his name?

Did Elimelech’s actions in this passage indicate that his Lord was King of his life?

The original readers wouldn’t have missed the fact that this man living in the middle of the promised land (Bethlehem in Judah) moved some 50 miles away to Moab, far away from the covenant community and worship of their covenant Lord Yahweh.

Was God forefront in his mind, his faith in God, in this decision to bring his wife and kids away to this place?

The text probably suggested otherwise to the original readers, who were well familiar with the fact that Moab was not in the Bible belt of the Near East, even though the grass there may have looked greener on other side.

So much of the Bible goes back to Genesis, and this is also the case here.

The OT Jews who first read or heard these first lines of Ruth would have thought of the first time Moab is mentioned, from Genesis 19, where Lot who also chose to live in a land that was not a godly place (maybe the closest place to Moab) simply because the grass looked greener there.

The environment that Lot (also as a true believer) chose had an effect on his family, and the sad story in Gen. 19 was Lot’s daughters got dad drunk and then committed incest with him to get pregnant.

/37 //The firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day./

In the time of Judges, Moab was the enemy of God’s people and Moab’s king had conquered Israel and forced the Jews to serve him for 18 years (Judges 3:12-14).

Later in the book of Judges (Judges 11:17-18) it was a land Israel was not even allowed to pass through by the king of Moab.

God and His OT prophets spoke out against Moab as a place and people of God’s judgment, but in the earliest books of the OT, the books of Moses, here’s just a sample of statements Ruth’s original Jewish readers would have known of:

-         The famous song of Miriam in Exodus 15 lists Moab as enemies of Israel that Yahweh delivered them from

-         Deut.

2:9 “/Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab … for I will not give you any of their land as a possession/”