Sorrow;
You Can’t Cover Up Your Mistakes
What Does Your Testimony say about you?
Ruth 1:6 – 18
Sept 25, 2011
In my last message, we took a look how a drought had come upon the land of Judah the family of Elimelech responded to it, they ran away. This drought that came upon the land was a direct result of the nation of Israel turning away from God and living according to their own standards. As a result many people would have perished as we saw with the Elimelech and his two sons. The sad part of their passing was where they died, fifty miles from home, in a land that God despised. Just as the nation of Israel rejected God, we took a look at how America today is doing very similar things in rejecting Him, and all the while asking, “What is happening to America?”
As we open up this section of the book of Ruth today, I want you to be asking yourself, which of the three individuals here does my testimony most closely imitate; Naomi, Orpah or Ruth? As you think about that question, I want you to ask yourself, how does my testimony stand in relation to this searching of God?
Ezekiel 22:30 – 31
30 “I looked for someone among you who could build walls or stand in front of me by the gaps in the walls to defend the land and keep it from being destroyed. But I couldn’t find anyone. 31 So I will pour out my anger on you, and with my fiery anger I will consume you. This is because of all the things you have done,” declares the Almighty Lord.
The testimony of Naomi (Ruth 1:6–15).
Verses 6 – 7
In the opening verses here, Naomi has heard that the God has lifted the famine in her homeland and decided to return home. We do not have in scripture where these three women were currently living, but the indication is all three women were living in the same house or at least the same location. Despite the time that Naomi has spent her in Moab she still sees herself as a foreigner and remember this is still the land that God despises, and now that God has returned bread to the land of Judah it is time to go back home.
Naomi’s reaction is typical of so many people, when the times are good, money is plenty, food all around, people will stay, but as soon as it is all gone, how quickly the people scatter, but bring back the plenty and guess who comes back?
The repeated plea of the prophets to God’s people was that they turn from their sins and return to the Lord. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7).
In response to Solomon at the dedication of the temple God says this to Solomon:
2 Chronicles 7:13 - 14
13 fWhen I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name ghumble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Naomi was making the right decision to go back to Judah, but her motives were all wrong, much like the incident after the feeding of the five thousand on five small loaves of bread and 2 small fish.
John 6:25 – 26
25 And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?”
26 Jesus answered them and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
Problem 1: She was still interested primarily in food, not in fellowship with God.
You don’t hear her confessing her sins to God and asking Him to forgive her. She was returning to her land but not to her Lord.
Warren W. Wiersbe tells a story about a time he was in a prayer meeting with a number of Youth for Christ leaders, among them Jacob Stam, brother of John Stam who, with his wife Betty, was martyred in China in 1934. “We had been asking God to bless this ministry and that project, and I suppose the word “bless” was used scores of times as we prayed. Then Jacob Stam prayed, “Lord, we’ve asked you to bless all these things; but, please, Lord, make us blessable.”
How often does this ring true for us? We are constantly asking God to do all of these things and great things they are, but have we missed the boat here? How does God bless but through His followers?
Problem 2: She did not want her two daughters-in-law to go with her.
If returning was the right thing for Naomi, then it should have been the right thing for her two daughter-in-laws also. Her mindset should have been like that of Moses as he tried to encourage his father-in-law to accompany him and the nation of Israel.
Numbers 10:32
32 If you come with us, we will share with you all the good things the Lord gives us.”
Instead, Naomi tried to influence the two women to go back to their families and their false gods.
Why would a person want to prevent someone from experiencing the blessings of God? Why force someone back into a losing life?
The impression that Naomi gives for not wanting to take Orpah and Ruth to Bethlehem is because they were living proof that she and her husband had permitted their two sons to marry women from outside the covenant nation. In other words, Naomi was trying to cover up her disobedience. If she returned to Bethlehem alone, nobody would know that the family had broken the Law of Moses.
Proverbs 28:13
13 Whoever covers over his sins does not prosper. Whoever confesses and abandons them receives compassion.
When Elimelech took his family to Moab, do you think he did so without anybody else knowing it? Even if people in Israel did not find out, what about the people of Moab? What about the daughters of Moab?
Naomi was bitter not because of the drought in Judah but because of the drought in herself from the lack of communion with God. She was without because she had too much, too much of self. The words of Psalms 51 are a little over one hundred years down the road, but they are here for us today. What is God wanting from us so He can refresh us?
In verse 16 David says;
16 You are not happy with any sacrifice. Otherwise, I would offer one ⌊to you⌋. You are not pleased with burnt offerings.
If it is not our works that makes things right with God then what is it?
17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. O God, you do not despise a broken and sorrowful heart.
The tragedy here is Orpah appears to have been lost as she is never again mentioned in scripture, simply because Naomi did not present God in a positive way. If Naomi had presented God as one who sticks closer than a brother through all our circumstances she could have seen two lost souls come home to Bethlehem.
The testimony of Orpah (Ruth 1:11–14).
Orpah’s testimony is a great example of exposure to a weak or hollow Christian and begs me to question, “How close has somebody come to accepting Christ until they met you?”.
Three different time, (verses 8, 11, 12) Naomi tells her daughter-in-laws to go back home. In verse 8 she asks the God of Israel to bless them and make them prosperous, while in verses 11 & 12 the same God she asks to bless these two ladies says won’t bless her.
How much urging would it take you to stop following someone who said the person they were following could not or would not take care of them? If someone tells me they are headed down a hopeless road, don’t expect me to follow, and as much as Orpah loved Naomi, with a future like that it is better off to go back home.
The testimony of Ruth (Ruth 1:15–18).
Obstacles to faith in God
Ruth’s testimony stands out despite hanging out with Naomi a nominal believer in God.
Despite Ruth’s back ground, anything that could have and should have prevented her from coming to faith in god was there.
If this is the way Jehovah God treats His people, why follow Him?
While Naomi was trying to cover up, Orpah had given up, Ruth was willing to Stand up. Stand up for what and who she believes in. Not only did she believe in Naomi during these hard times she had come to believe in Jehovah. Instead of blaming god for her life’s situation, she started to trust in Him through her life’s situations.
Since Elimelech and Mahlon were now dead, Ruth was technically under the guardianship of Naomi; and she should have obeyed her mother-in-law’s counsel. But God intervened and graciously saved Ruth in spite of all these obstacles.
Ruth’s statement in Ruth 1:16–17 is one of the most magnificent confessions found anywhere in Scripture. First, she confessed her love for Naomi and her desire to stay with her mother-in-law even unto death. Then she confessed her faith in the true and living God and her decision to worship Him alone. She was willing to forsake father and mother (2:11) in order to cleave to Naomi and the God of her people. Ruth was steadfastly “determined” to accompany Naomi (1:18) and live in Bethlehem with God’s covenant people.
This testimony needs to be understood in light of Deuteronomy 23:3 – 5
3 Ammonites or Moabites may not join the assembly of the Lord. Not one descendant of theirs may join the assembly of the Lord for ten generations. 4 They cannot join because they didn’t greet you with food and water on your trip from Egypt. They even hired Balaam, son of Beor, from Pethor in Aram Naharaim, to curse you. 5 But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam. Instead, he turned Balaam’s curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. 6 Never offer them peace or friendship as long as you live.
This meant permanent exclusion. How then could Ruth enter into the congregation of the Lord? By trusting God’s grace and throwing herself completely on His mercy. Law excludes us from God’s family, but grace includes us if we put our faith in Christ.
God delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18), and often He shows His mercy to the least likely people in the least likely places.
1 Tim 2:4 - 6
4 He wants all people to be saved and to learn the truth. 5 There is one God. There is also one mediator between God and humans—a human, Christ Jesus. 6 He sacrificed himself for all people to free them from their sins. This message is valid for every era.
When you read the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 4, you find the names of five women, four of whom have very questionable credentials: Tamar committed incest with her father-in-law (Gen. 38:3); Rahab was a Gentile harlot (Josh. 2:5); Ruth was an outcast Gentile Moabitess (Ruth 1:5); and “the wife of Uriah” was an adulteress (2 Sam. 11:6). How did they ever become a part of the family of the Messiah? Through the sovereign grace and mercy of God! God is “long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NKJV). (Mary is the fifth woman in the genealogy, and she was included because of God’s grace and her faith. See Luke 1:26–56.)
The message here today is a simple one, “Don’t let your past sins be a stumbling block for you and others, but instead let them be a stepping stone. It’s not about your abortion, divorce, addiction to drugs, alcohol or pornography, but about God’s grace.
Law prevents union, Law prevents harmony, Law prevents love, but Grace overrules the law. Whatever your drought has been that has separated you from God, the table of fellowship is waiting for you today. Come home and bring your friends with you.