Well, the Book of Ruth. Let's
turn to the Book of Ruth. I was going to speak from verses
19 down to 22, but we might go back just to put it into context.
And the context, of course, is the simple one that we have been
looking at these last few weeks of Naomi and Elimelech going
down to the land of Moab to escape from the famine that was in Judah.
And down there, Naomi's husband and her two sons die. And so the two daughters-in-law
make their way to go back with Naomi. Orpah, in verse 14, kissed
her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her, clave unto her, and she
said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people,
unto her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not
to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee, for
where you go, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God. Where thou diest, I will die,
and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more
also, if ought but death part thee and me. When she saw that
she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking
unto her. So we looked last week at the
confession of Ruth, and then this evening I'd like us to look
at these next verses and look at Naomi's confession. So they
too went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they
were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about
them. And they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them,
Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Lord has dealt very bitterly
with me. I went out full, and the Lord
hath brought me home again empty. Why then call you me Naomi, seeing
the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted
me? So Naomi returned and Ruth the
Moabites, her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out
of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning
of the barley harvest. One of the wonderful things about
the salvation of our God, who is faithful and true, is that
when God saves sinners to Himself and brings them back to Himself,
He actually deals with them as they really are, and He reveals
Himself as He really is. At the end of the day, as you
go through life, you get very tired of relationships which
are shallow, relationships which are no deeper than skin, and
you long for real and honest and meaningful relationships.
And such is the way the Lord draws His people to Himself. I love the fact, just on the
surface of this, the way Naomi uses none of the excuses common
to all of Adam's race. She could have, with some justification,
said, I was led to Moab by a limeleck. I always get concerned when those
helicopters go over, it nearly always means that there's something
very serious happening at the hospital and there is a family,
no doubt, and many others going through a time of grieving. But
we are. We're prone, aren't we? We only
have to read Genesis 3 and see what Adam and Eve did. They could
blame everyone except themselves. And she could have said, I was
just being an obedient wife. It was Limelech who led me down
there and I just went along and followed with him. She doesn't
say that at all. She could have, as Adam said,
blamed God and said, it's really your fault. You had the power
and the authority and the ability to make us as a family stay in
Bethlehem. You gave me a limeleck as a husband
to obey. That's what Adam said in the
garden. She could have said it was just my flesh doing this,
my natural desires. But in this picture here we have
a wonderful picture of the Gospel of God restoring His people to
Himself. We see in this activity of God
in the lives of those that He loved from eternity and He loved
in the Lord Jesus, we see Him bringing people to Himself. Another
of the most remarkable promises that Satan made in the garden,
which is a shocking lie, is that he says, your eyes will be opened. Your eyes will be opened. At
the time they had the most remarkably open eyes you could ever wish
to see. They walked with God and communed with God and lived
with each other in the most extraordinary creation, in the most amazing
relationship with each other and with God. They had the most
remarkably opened eyes. And Satan says, your eyes will
be opened. You will be like God. You'll
know good and evil. You can know good and evil. You
can stand in judgment of God. You can stand in judgment of
God's Word. You can stand in judgment of
God's judgment. Such is the depravity of man
with his opened eyes. So part of the process of restoration
and repentance and faith which we see the Lord bringing is this
real chastening hand of the Lord to bring His people to Himself.
There will be a chastening hand of God. His rod will come upon
His wayward children. And there will be real pain.
There will be a real stripping. There will be a real wounding.
There will be a real emptying. And these are the things that
Naomi confesses. Her name meant pleasant. She
went out She went out full, full in creature confidence, full
in dependence on her wisdom and her righteousness. She went out
seeking her comforts in this world. She and Elimelech went
out. Away from Bethlehem, the house
of bread, the house where God promises to feed His people,
they went to Moab to avoid the judgement of God. That's what
all false religion does, isn't it? All false refuges will find
a place to avoid the righteous judgment of God. Therefore, in
love, in faithfulness, says Psalm 119, in faithfulness God afflicts
His people. There will be a real chastening
and there will be a real testifying of the Lord. Ruth's confession
was a remarkable confession, but it's made all the more meaningful
because of Naomi's situation and Naomi's confession of faith. I love what she says about the
character of God. In verse 13 she says, the hand
of the Lord has gone out against me. Then she says, the Lord has
emptied me. The Lord has testified against
me. The Lord has dealt very bitterly
with me. The Lord the Almighty has afflicted
me. Naomi was so changed, so changed
under these afflictions, the loss of her husband, the loss
of her two sons, and the loss of her health. As we'll see in
the next chapters, she was unable even to go out to the wheat fields. and pick up heads of grain. Such
was the state of affliction. No wonder the people say, is
this Naomi? Is this Naomi? She was broken. She went out full, she went out
pleasant, but she was brought home a broken woman. brought home to the Lord Jesus,
but she was brought home broken and chastened. She went out full.
As I said earlier, her name means pleasant, beautiful. She was
full of wisdom in herself. She was full of family, a husband
and two sons. She was full of possessions.
She had land. It seems from various understandings
of the Hebrew words that she was a wealthy woman in Bethlehem,
she in Elimelech. And she came and she went out
with her self, her sense of self-righteousness. And she is a great picture, isn't
she Naomi? She's a great picture of Adam's
fall. And she's also a picture of a
believer who strays from the Lord and strays from his people
and strays from his worship and strays from his word. God's children
do stray. And they stray into places where
it seems as if they will never recover. But the sovereign grace
which saves is the sovereign grace which restores, is the
sovereign grace which keeps. They never ceased. They never
ceased. Naomi and Ruth never ceased to
be the children of God. They never ceased to be ones
in whose sins were put away. They never ceased to be accepted
in the Beloved. That doesn't mean that they won't
have affliction. Our Lord Jesus Christ who voluntarily
became purity had taken before the foundation of the world full
responsibility for their eternal security. Therefore, when He
afflicts, it is always, it is always to draw His people back
to Him. The prodigal went out full and
the Lord brought him home as He did with Naomi. He brought
him home Empty. The afflictions are sharp. and severe and real and painful
because the disease is so severe and painful. Romans 5 gives a
great list of the depravity of man, doesn't it? It says that
when we were without strength, we were ungodly, verse 6. We were sinners. We were, verse
9, worthy of wrath. We were enemies of God. And in verse 12 of Romans 5 it
says, By one man sin entered into the world, and so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. See, our problem
began with the sin of our father Adam. We are born into this world
sinners. And that's why verse 14 of Romans
5 says, And death reigned. And verse 19 is just wonderful,
isn't it? Wonderful description of the
state of man and a wonderful description of the salvation
of our God. For by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners. Many were made sinners. So by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Ruth, as we saw, were steadfastly
minded. Their problems, their physical
problems and their problems in this world are so much related
to how we think and our minds. Colossians 1.21 says, you sometimes
were alienated enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now
has he reconciled. And when He reconciles people,
they are born again and born anew, and they're born in Him,
aren't they? And He has put on the new man,
Colossians 3.10, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of Him that created Him. we are made. We are made in the
image of God and now in the recreation we are going to be conformed
to the image of Christ. So Naomi is a picture of a fallen
believer, Ruth is a picture of a convert turned to have a right
mind. They now really have eyes that
are opened, not the eyes that Satan gave them that they thought
were open to go their own way. Now their eyes are opened. And
when the eyes of a sinner are opened to see what he is and
to see that salvation is in nowhere but the Lord Jesus Christ, no
matter what it costs, no matter what it costs, for Naomi it costs
shame. Is this Naomi? Naomi had to come
back exposed. Is this Naomi? Naomi comes back
destitute of absolutely everything, destitute of her family. She
has now come back to Bethlehem in the hands of another and she's
even dependent upon another for food. She went to Moab for bread
and now she comes back to Bethlehem completely dependent on another.
So that's what the believer says, isn't it? I must get to Bethlehem. I must get to the house of bread.
I must get to the place where the mercy seat is, where Christ
the mercy seat. I must get to the place where
the kinsman redeemer is, and whatever the cost is. See, Ruth
left everything for the sake of Christ. Naomi was stripped
of everything for the sake of Christ. Those blessed are they
who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It's a real hunger and it's a
real thirst. Isn't it wonderful that salvation
is of the Lord and salvation is in God's hands. All of our
lives our salvation is in the hands of our husband and our
Redeemer. As I said I just wanted to look
Briefly at these confessions that Naomi makes, in verse 13
she says, the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Verse
20, the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. Verse 21, the
Lord has brought me home again empty. And that word empty is
to be worthless, to be vain, to be void. The Lord, verse 21,
has testified against me. And verse 21 again at the end. The Lord has afflicted me. Our great God. Naomi's confession is that our
great God is able, isn't He? He's able. The Lord Jesus Christ
is able. He is able. He's able to afflict. He's able to testify truth against
His people. and no one will stop the almighty
bringing his bride to himself, absolutely nothing. He is the
head and she is the body. His body will be perfect, perfectly
complete. What a shocking picture Naomi
is of the fall. If you just turn over in your
scriptures just a couple of pages, there is a great description
at the beginning in 1st Samuel chapter 2, just a few pages over,
and it's Hannah's prayer and Hannah's song. And it's amazing
how descriptive it is of the journey of Naomi and Ruth. They that were four have hired
themselves out for bread. They that were hungry cease,
so that the baron has borne seven, and she that has many children
is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth. and maketh
alive. 1 Samuel 2 verse 6. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave
and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh
rich. He bringeth low and lifts up. He raises up the poor out of
the dust, and He lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, to
set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne
of glory. For the pillars of the earth
are the Lord's." He is absolutely sovereign. And He has set the
world upon them. Everything in this creation is
His, His to rule and His to reign over, exactly as He sees fit. And in verse 9, a glorious promise,
He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall
be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall
be broken to pieces, and out of heaven He shall thunder upon
them. The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and He shall
give strength unto His King. the Lord Jesus Christ and exalt
the horn of his anointed. The Lord Jesus said, didn't he,
all that the Father gives me will come to me and all that
come to me I will in no wise cast out. But in his bringing
his people to himself, his first work is a bitter work. He wounds to heal. He crushes
to make anew. He kills, as we've just read,
to make alive. He strips. to clothe. See he means, he means as Naomi
confessed, he means to cause bitterness, he means to chasten
us, he uses his rod with a purpose. Now under the sign that says
it's a comfort, his rod and his staff, they comfort me. He means it. His work is at first
a bitter work. He must and He will, for all
of His own, He'll turn us from our way, our way of our opened
eyes, to His way of really seeing. And the bitterness always is
only a bitterness to our flesh. It's only a bitterness to our
flesh. We'll find it'll give health
to our souls when the Lord chastens His own. You see, our flesh and
my flesh are exactly like Naomi's, isn't it? We always want comfort. Make me comfortable that I of
our flesh always says, more for me. The eye of my flesh says,
I deserve it, I have the right, I have earned it, I am owed it.
And when the Lord deals with His people, as Naomi says, when
the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me, verse 21, I went out
full, but the Lord has brought me home again empty. Emptying is His gracious work
in the lives of His people. You see, all of us by nature,
all of Adam's children are in the business 100% of the time
of manufacturing refuges, some place of safety, some place where
we can find a place of comfort when trouble comes, whether it's
trouble in mind or trouble in reality. As I said earlier, Moab
for Elimelech and Naomi was a place to escape the judgment of God. God had promised, you can read
it in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 and many, many other places in the
Old Testament, God had promised that this land was to be a land
of milk and honey. And when it wasn't a land flowing
with milk and honey, it was because the Lord had afflicted them,
to bring people back to himself. It is called, isn't it, as Ruth,
as Orpha went back, she had lots of emotion, she had followed
them on the path to Bethlehem for a little while, but she went
back, as Naomi said, she went back to the gods, the gods of
her people. She went back to the country
of Moab. The Lord won't allow His people
to go back there and to live there forever. He must and He
will bring His people out and it will be a bitter process. It will be an emptying process,
emptied of self. emptied of self-righteousness,
emptied of self-holiness, emptied of self-man-made religion. He will take his children from
Moab. He will take his people out of
the religion of this world and he will bring them to himself. He came to call sinners to repentance. He came to heal the sick. The healthy don't need a doctor.
The righteous don't need repentance. And this is why Ruth and Naomi
can say in verse 20, I went out full and the Lord has brought
me home again empty. Why then call me Naomi, seeing
the Lord has testified against me? In the preaching of the Gospel,
God always sends His preacher. She'd heard, hadn't she? She'd
heard in verse 6, in the country of Moab, how the Lord had visited
His people in giving them bread. God will send His preachers. And God will send his preacher
to teach you of Christ as he really is. And God will send
his word to the hearts of his people to testify against you. All flesh is grass. And our God reigns. Our God reigns. So Naomi thought
there was bread down in Moab. She was saying, I can escape
the judgement of God for me and my family. And God says, my bread
will be given in my house. See, all of her activities, all
of Elimelech's activities and his sons, all of the activities
of man, always, always take them further away from God. And nothing more particularly
than religion of man, where man's wisdom creates a refuge for man. All of that activity will take
people further away from God. The Almighty, to get his people
back to himself, will do what he's done. He'll empty He'll
empty his people. He'll testify against them, and
he will afflict them. To get his child to his house
of bread, he must strip you." Naomi was stripped, wasn't she?
She lost her husband. She lost her two sons. She lost
a daughter-in-law. She lost her wealth. She lost
her health. She was reduced to the perfect
place where she was totally dependent upon God and had nothing of her
own to lean on. He had taken all of her refuges
away. Now she has opened eyes, eyes
that are opened by the Lord, to see who she is, bitter, empty
Mara. And that's all she was. And what
does she confess about God? See, she doesn't deny His hand
in all of it. She calls Him the Lord, the Almighty. He has done this. He has afflicted
me. He has dealt with me. He has
testified against me. It is all His hand and she is
happy to confess it." One of the things I keep pleading
with people is that they don't play games with God, as Colossians
4 says, verse 3. Don't lie. Don't lie. Don't lie about God. Don't lie about yourself. Don't lie to one another. That's why I love what the publican
did when he went up to the temple, didn't he? He says, Lord have
mercy on me, the sinner. He said, Lord you look at your
son crucified and have mercy on me." The sinner, he called
himself. He wasn't worried about what
other people were doing. He wasn't looking over the fence
into someone else's backyard. He had one thing in mind, him,
he and the Lord. The Lord, the Almighty is Naomi's
confession. He is right in all that he does. He is just in all that he does. but also this Almighty who afflicts. He's the One who alone can save."
The author had a choice. She went back to her people and
she went to her gods in Moab. But look at what Naomi says in
verse 21. The Lord hath brought me home."
Isn't that a glorious description of the Lord's saving of His people?
He has brought me home. Not that I did something of myself.
It was irresistible grace. It was effectual love and grace
and mercy. The only hope for Naomi to be
brought home was that the Lord do it. The only remedy is in
the Lord to save Ruth and to keep Naomi. And so in verse 22
she says, so Naomi returned. So she'd heard. She'd heard that
the Lord had visited his people. You see what she does? In verse
6 she arose. She arose and she went forth,
verse 7, out of the place where she was. Faith honours God and
exalts Christ. She acted in faith, the faith
that He has given. And that's why it says, Nayat,
she returned, verse 22, she returned out of the country of Nayat. Moab is a country. Moab is large
and expansive. Moab is a place of many gods.
She's returned home to Bethlehem. It's God's house of bread. Repentance, that's what repentance
is, isn't it? It's being turned by God from
our way to God's way. She's returned to Bethlehem,
Judah. Bethlehem is the house of bread. Judah means praise. She's returned
to the house of bread in the place of praise. How do you come
to Christ? You come to Christ, as Naomi
did and Ruth did, in repentance and faith. And just in closing,
I want to look at the last words there, it's remarkable, the timing
of God's bringing His people back to Himself. They came to
Bethlehem. in the beginning of the barley
harvest. So the beginning of the barley
harvest signifies the firstfruits, the feast of firstfruits. In
Leviticus 23, if you just turn there briefly, Leviticus 23 we
have these feasts of the Lord laid out and the Passover, the
Passover was that feast that signified Christ Jesus, the Passover
sacrifice for us. But two days later, two days
later, Leviticus 23 verse 9, is the Feast of Firstfruits. So it was on that Lord's Day,
the Lord Jesus was sacrificed as our Passover, and then on
the Feast of Firstfruits on that Sunday, He arose again. Passover, of course, signifies
the Lord passing over the houses of the people of Israel. There
was a death in every house in the land of Egypt. There was
a death. Every firstborn son in Egypt
was slain. All the firstborn sons of all
the Egyptians were slain that night, and every firstborn son
of God. was slain in the Lord Jesus Christ
that night. That's what that lamb represented
that night. And the Lord said, when I see the blood, when I
see the blood of my son, I will pass over. It's the church of
the firstborn. All of God's children died in
him. In Ruth that same word that means
the beginning of the barley harvest in some translations speaks of
Passover. That lamb was provided as a Passover
for God sending it for His people and Christ Jesus was that blood
that God saw and He passes over all of His people. His judgment passes over His
people, because His judgment fell on His people in the Lord
Jesus Christ, which is why they are justified. It's why He is
raised again. It's why He reigns. And it's
why we must proclaim the Gospel, and to proclaim He who is the
Gospel, we must proclaim particular, effective, successful redemption. It brought Naomi home. It brought
Ruth home. And when we exalt an electing
God who chooses a particular people out of all of Adam's fallen
race, it brings man down and it puts man who wants to sit
on a throne in the very same place that Naomi was, in the
hands of God. The barley harvest signifies
the feast of firstfruits. We don't have much time. We'll
deal with this later more succinctly, I hope. But the Sunday after
the Passover was the time when He arose. And He was the firstfruits,
wasn't He? He was the firstfruits. And all
His elect in this field of the world are now ripe for harvest. Even those born as Ruth was in
a cursed land. Even those born as Rahab, Boaz's
grandmother was, as a harlot in a cursed place. They'll be
brought to him. And in Leviticus 23, just look
briefly at it with me as we close. He said, Speak to the children
of Israel and say unto them, When you come into the land which
I give you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then you shall
bring a sheaf to the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest,
and you shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted
for you on the morrow after the Sabbath. The priest shall wave
it. And you shall offer that day,
when you waive the sheaf, a he-lamb without blemish of the first
year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the meat offering
thereof shall be two-tenths deals of fine flour mingled with oil,
an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet sabre. to think of all of this as representative
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the drink offering thereof
shall be of wine, the fourth part of a hen, and you shall
eat neither bread nor parched corn nor green ears until the
selfsame day that you have brought an offering unto your God. It shall be a statute forever
throughout your generations in all your dwellings. The Lord
Jesus is that First Spirit. The Lord Jesus is that Priest. And God's hand provides all of
the work of salvation. And the first fruit is a signifying,
of course, that there is now the harvest that's laid out before
God's people. There is bread. The first fruits
are there. There is bread in the house of
bread to feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. I love what verse 11
in Leviticus 23 says, and he shall wave the sheaf before the
Lord to be accepted for you. He waves us before God. He holds the sheaf for you. before
God. He brings them out of the land
of Moab, out of the gods of Moab. He brings them with a mighty
hand, but a hand that afflicts, a hand that testifies against
them, a hand that empties them. And He brings them to a place
of bread. And He holds His people up before
His Father. He the first fruit, the mighty
harvest to come. Let's pray.