This evening then, we're going
to look at the last part of Job chapter 1, verse 19 down through
verse 22. And I'm taking the title from
the words found in verse 21, where Naomi says, I went out
full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why then call me blessed, Naomi,
seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty
hath afflicted me? I went out full and came home
empty." She left Jerusalem with Elimelech, her husband, years
before. You remember, they went out with
plenty. They went out rich and increased with goods. They went
out with plenty, but they went to the land of Moab seeking more,
seeking more. Now, I tried to look on my map
to see how far Moab is from Bethlehem, and best I can calculate, it's
a hundred miles or so. Moab is on the east side of the
Dead Sea. They went over across the Dead
Sea into a dead land of idolatry. Leaving the house of bread, they
made a terrible decision. But even in that, the Lord used
that to His ultimate glory and their ultimate good. The Lord
took away her husband. The Lord took away her two boys.
Now she comes back home broke, empty, Stripped of all her pride,
she comes back as a mere mercy beggar, looking upon those in
the town of Bethlehem to provide for them. This is where the Lord,
in his good providence, must bring
all of us under this point spiritually, stripped, broken, as a mercy
beggar before God. like Job who had plenty and was
completely stripped by the Lord to learn the gospel lesson, the
Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. That was a painful lesson. Job
shaved his head and rent his clothes and fell down upon the
ground. You know, his 10 children were
gone. All of his substance gone. and
yet he worshiped God. I'd like to do that. I'd like
to be like Brother Job and like Naomi. Naomi also submitted to
the almighty hand of God. I remember a statement years
ago made by an old gospel preacher, a good friend of Pastor Mahan,
Pastor Scott Richardson, who pastored up in Fairmont, West Virginia, Katie
Baptist Church. And I never forget what he said.
This has been years and years ago, but I've repeated it over
the years. And here's what Brother Scott
said along the line of God's good providence. He said, if
you knew everything that God knows, if you knew everything
that God knows, you would not change one thing in your life.
Now we would think, well, you know this, I'm saying that you
knew everything God knows, you would not change one thing in
your life because everything is working in the life of the
believer unto his eternal salvation and eternal glory. Doesn't the
scripture bear that out? And we know that all things work
together for good to them who love God, to them who are called
according to His purpose. And then the Apostle Paul writes
in 2 Corinthians 4 that these light afflictions that God sends
our way, they don't work against us, they're working for us, an
eternal and exceeding weight of glory. So here comes Naomi
back. a homeless widow, all her earthly
comforts are gone. The Lord maketh rich, the Lord
maketh poor, the Lord doeth all these things. Now you remember
the story how Naomi was determined to go back to Bethlehem, back
to Bethlehem of Judah, back to the house of bread, the house
of blessing, the house of Judah. Judah means to praise the She
told, at first, Ophrah, her two daughter-in-laws, Ophrah and
Ruth, to go back home to their family, to their gods. And Ophrah
went back, but Ruth would not leave. Remember, she clave unto
Naomi and would not go. She said, where you go, that's
where I'm gonna go. Where you live, that's where I'm gonna
live. Your God's gonna be my God, and where you die, aught
but death. part thee and me." She said,
I'm with you till we die, or till I die, or till you die.
When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to leave Moab and
to go with her to Bethlehem, she stopped trying to persuade
her to do otherwise. She submitted to the will of
God. You see that in verse 18. When she saw that she was steadfastly
minded, steadfastly minded, To go with her, to go with Naomi,
she quit trying to convince her to go back to her own family,
her own people. Ruth was steadfastly minded,
that is such is the resolve of saving faith. I believe Ruth
was granted saving faith. Ruth was steadfastly minded and
such is the resolve of saving faith, the faith of God's elect."
Steadfast, steadfast. She could not, Ruth could not
be persuaded to leave Naomi. And believers of the same mind,
they too are steadfastly minded and will not leave the gospel
ministry or will not leave the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Peter said when the Lord said,
All those other fellows left, why don't you just get in line
and leave with them? Remember what Peter said, Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. We believe and we're sure. You're that Christ, the Son of
the living God. You remember the Apostle Paul,
after he came to know the true and living God, he said, I count
all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things. Reputation,
he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. I suffered a loss of all things.
I count but done that I may win Christ to be found in him. Those
very, his very fellow Pharisees and Sadducees, they sought to
kill. when he became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
later writes from prison, he says, I know whom I have believed,
and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. Now look at verse 19 and verse
22. So they two went until they came
to Bethlehem. Now this wasn't an easy journey. I'm sure they did this journey
on foot. And it's at least a hundred-mile
journey. It was not an easy journey. They
came to Bethlehem. How long does it take to walk
a hundred miles? Several days, several days. I've
been on several 20-mile hikes, and it takes most of the day
to do that, and that's when I was young. Naomi's not young. It probably took weeks or maybe
more. They too went. 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? Now look at verse 22. So Naomi returned, and Ruth Moabitis,
her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out of the country
of Moab. You remember Moab was the land
of idolatry over there in the Dead Sea with the dead God. And
they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest.
The barley harvest was in the spring. They planted that crop
in the fall, and then in the spring the barley harvest was
ready to be harvested. Now it was no accident that Ruth
and Naomi came to Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest,
the feast of the first fruits. They came at the time appointed
by God. because they came by the sovereign
providence of God. It wasn't just accidental, as
we would say, or by chance. They came by the sovereign providence,
the sovereign good providence of God. We know that of Him and
through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory both
now and forever and ever. Amen. They came at the right
time. because the right time was arranged
by God. You see, all things are of God. All things are of God who has
reconciled us to Jesus Christ by Himself, by Christ crucified. We know the Lord does everything
He does according to His good pleasure, doesn't He? So they
came at the right time, they came to the right place. They
came to Bethlehem. Bethlehem, we know, is a house
of bread. Bethlehem was a place where the Lord Jesus Christ,
God incarnate, would manifest in the flesh. Christ we know, Bethlehem is
known as the house of bread. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the bread of life, the bread of life. They came to the right
barley field that belonged to Boaz the near kinsman. And Ruth,
when she went to that barley field, she doesn't really know
about Boaz or anything about him. But she came to the right
barley field that belonged to Boaz, who was the near kinman
of Elimelech. It wasn't by chance, not by chance,
but by purpose, by the good providence of God. And it says there, I
like what it says over here in chapter two, verse 16, when Boaz
sees Ruth there gleaning, and they have some kind of conversation,
and Boaz instructs the servants who were reaping the field, let
fall also some hands full of purpose for her, and leave them
that she may glean them and rebuke her not. So, hands full on purpose. And that's what God gives us
by his grace. He gives us hands full on purpose. And it was by hap, it says here
in chapter two, verse three, she went and came and gleaned
in the field after the reaper and her hap, or as it happened,
or we could say, as it came to pass. Now, how did that come
to pass? We know God brought it to pass.
to light on the part of the field, just a part of this field that
belonged to Boaz. I mean, it was probably hundreds
of acres, and probably they collectively farmed this, different men who
owned this field and had the right to the barley, but she
ended up on that particular parcel of ground that belonged to the
Kinsmen Redeemer. And we know it was by God's good
purpose, don't Boaz, we know if you read the story, is going
to marry Ruth. And from that marriage, they
had a son who had a son who had a son named David, who had another
son, the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see how the
providence of God works in all this? And he does that in all
the lives of God's people. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning. Likewise, all the elect of God
will be called with the gospel message of Christ just at the
right time. God's on good time. As David
said, my time's in thy hand. Remember from that story in Ezekiel
chapter 16 about the cast out infant that was just cast out
of the open field and left there to die? And God said, in the
time of love I pass by thee and clothe thee. And that's when
God saves us. It's in the time of His sovereign
love when He crosses our path with the gospel. Old Saul of
Tarsus, that old self-righteous Pharisee, was unhorsed and put
in the dust and made to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. You
remember on his road of rebellion to persecute believers? And he
writes later about that And he says, when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the
heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. When
will a sinner be saved? When it pleases God. Whatsoever
the Lord please, that's what he did in heaven and earth, sea
and all deep places, all deep places. All the elect of God
will be called out of darkness to the right place, at the right
time, with the right means, pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, come unto me all you that labor heavy laden, I will
give you rest. He calls us out of darkness into
his marvelous light, and he does it with the means he's ordained.
What does it mean he's ordained? The preaching of the gospel.
He calls us out with the right message at the right time, the
right way, everything's right for his glory. Now look at verse
19, the last part of it. It says there, when they came
to Bethlehem, all the city was moved. They knew who Naomi was. And they said, is this Naomi?
And she said to them, call me not Naomi, pleasant, call me
Myra, for the Almighty hath dealt very, very bitterly. She perceived it as a bitterness,
but really it was goodness, goodness to her. All the city was moved,
all the city was moved when they saw the condition of Naomi. I mean, she's now old and wrinkled
and broken and she's poor. These two widows, probably being
on the road those many, many days, maybe weeks, their clothes
were tattered and dirty. Their clothes were worn out.
No doubt they were just tired of their journey. No doubt they
were hungry. And yet the city rejoiced to see them when Naomi
came back home. And it reminds me of the story
that we have in Luke chapter 15 about that shepherd that had
a hundred sheep and one little sheep was lost. And that shepherd
went out and found that one little sheep and put him on his shoulder
and took him home. And then the Lord said, there's
more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents than
the 99 that need no repentance. There's a great rejoicing among
God's saints in heaven and in the earth when a bankrupt sinner
is brought to the Lord in saving faith. To hear a sinner say,
your God is my God. To hear a sinner say, your gospel
is my gospel. To hear a sinner say that the
Lord Jesus Christ is all my salvation, all my hope, all my desire, as
David said on his deathbed. We rejoice, don't we? There's
rejoicing in heaven, and we rejoice too, just as these people did
when they saw Naomi come home. She was broken, she was withered,
she was hungry, but yet they rejoiced to see her. I like what
David said on his deathbed, and I pray this will be my deathbed
confession. I've got a dear friend whose
dad is very sick right now. He's in the hospital, dying with
cancer, eaten up with infection, and they're trying to sustain
his life by putting a feeding tube, this man's an old man,
putting a feeding tube down his throat to try to give him
some nourishment. His body's dying. There's no
point to it. I had a conversation with my
son today and I asked him about those feeding tubes, putting
feeding tubes in hospitals, what he thought about it. He said,
well, sometimes it's a good thing. I wrote back to him, I said,
if I ever come to that point, don't put a feeding tube in me. You're not starving to death.
The body is dying, therefore it has no need of nourishment. Don't stick a feeding tube down
my throat. Let me go home to be with the
Lord, and let me say with David, although my house be not so with
God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things. And sure, this is all my salvation
and all my desire. It need no improvement, although
we make it not to grow. Is this Naomi, they said? And she said, is this Naomi,
the last part of verse 19, and she said, Yeah, yeah, what's
left of me? But don't call me Naomi anymore,
call me Marvara. Call me Marvara. I went out full,
verse 21, the Lord brought me home again empty. Why then call
you my Naomi, seeing the hand, seeing the Lord hath testified
against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me? Is this Naomi?"
Notice she answered, God Almighty had dealt bitterly with me, had
given me, dealt with me a bitter blow. She acknowledges that her
trial came from the hand of the Lord. She said, the Lord has
afflicted me. She acknowledges that God sent this trial by His
good hand. The Almighty had afflicted me.
The Almighty had testified against me. She didn't say, well, I've
had some bad luck. She didn't say, well, the trial
was the result of cruel fate or chance, nor the hand of the
Lord. The hand of the Lord, she said. The Almighty, the Almighty God
had sent this trial our way. Those who the Lord loves, he
certainly does send trials for our eternal good. Although painful
in the present and heartbreaking, also heartbreaking, yet they
work for us, not against us. I'll quote that verse again from
2 Corinthians 4, where Paul said, our light afflictions. And this
man knew something about affliction, didn't he? He knew a lot about
it. He was so afflicted that God
had to give him a traveling physician, Luke, with a doctor. He was so
beaten and stoned and shipwrecked and all these different things.
And he says, our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, worketh
for us a far more an exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
They're just for a moment, and they're light compared to what
we deserve, and they're light compared to what the Lord Jesus
Christ suffered in our stead. The cup of affliction sent from
the hand of God, we often perceive it as a bitter cup. It's a bitter
cup to drink. And God's people are not free
from it. Our Lord said, in this world you shall have tribulation.
Ah, but be in good cheer, I've overcome. But it yields a peaceable
fruit in the end, for the believer it does. The experience is not
joyful but painful, but in the end the results are always glorifying
to God and for our eternal good. We're going to see that in Hebrews
chapter 12 in our study. In the book of Hebrews, where
the Apostle writes, no chastening for the present seems joyful,
but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness. God in his faithfulness has afflicted
us. Whom the Lord loveth, he chastened
us. In these times of trouble, nothing will give us more comfort
and peace than to know they come from the hand of our loving Father.
As I just quoted, whom the Lord loveth, then this is in also
in that same chapter, Hebrew 12, whom the Lord loveth, he
chastened and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Peter
calls them precious trials. Precious trials because they
wean us from trusting everything but the Lord. Now, give me some
examples of that. We read there Job chapter 1.
Where did Job find comfort? I mean, Job had a bitter pill
to swallow from the hand of God. Where did he find comfort? The
Lord gave. The Lord had taken away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. When young Samuel told the priest
of God, Eli, that God was going to kill his two rebellious sons,
you remember? 1 Samuel chapter 3. Remember what Eli said? It's
the Lord. Let Him do what seems good in His sight. I think about
David. When David had that adulterous
affair with Bathsheba, and conceived a child, and God told David that I'm going
to kill that child. And sure enough, the child was
born, and the child was sick. And David mourned and mourned
and mourned for that child while the child was living. But when
the child died, David washed his face, put on new clothes,
ate a big meal, and his servants looked at him and said, why is
he doing that? When the child was alive, he
was mourning and fasting and weeping. Now the child's dead
and he's rejoicing? What's wrong with that man? Remember
what David said? While he's alive, I was weeping,
but now that he's dead, I can't bring him back to me, but I can
go to him." Those little ones who die, they die in the Lord.
And David's peace and comfort was that one day he'd be with
his infant son. That's why David writes, God
has afflicted me in his faithfulness, in his faithfulness. Let me just
read this to you. This is Psalm 119. David writes, it's good for me
that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. David
knew a lot about afflictions. He was hunted and hated like
a partridge, bird. They hated him. His father-in-law
hated him. And then he writes this, I know,
O Lord, Psalm 119, verse 75, that thy judgments are right,
that thou in thy faithfulness has afflicted me. When the Lord is pleased to fill
our cup with bitterness of trials, heartaches and painful experiences,
let us seek to be content and let us seek his grace to help
us in our time of need. That's where we go when we have
problems and heartaches. We go to the throne of grace.
He said, come boldly to the throne of grace that you may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need. She said in
verse 21, I went out full and the Lord brought me home empty.
Why do you call me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against
me? The hand of the Almighty hath afflicted me. Naomi left Bethlehem full. She
had a husband and two children. She had wealth. But she was brought
back homeless, broke, and hungry. This is also another picture
of Adam's fall, Adam's ruin. Adam was made full, sweet and
pleasant. Made in the image of God. Adam
had dominion over all the garden. He was a brilliant creature.
Made in the image of God. God created Adam full. Made in
his image. He had life. He had fellowship
with God. He had righteousness. Now look at Adam after he sinned
against God. Sinful, dead in sin, hiding and
running away from God. Emptied because of sin against
God. Adam could say after he was fallen
and sinned against God and was fallen, call me no longer sweet
and pleasant, call me Myra. bitter, guilty, fallen sinner. Is this Adam? Look at Adam, fallen,
now emptied. Emptied of life, emptied of righteousness,
void of understanding, separated from God because of sin, and
Adam all died. Because of Adam's sin, we're
all born empty. We're born sinful. Someone said,
Adam, think about this, Adam is the only man that became a
sinner by sinning. Did you hear that? Adam was the
only man that became a sinner by sinning. We're born that way. We're not born in a state of
innocence and then someday what they say, well, there's an age
of accountability. That's a myth. We're born in
sin, shaped in iniquity. Because Adam sinned, we sinned
in him. David said that in Psalm 51.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, in sin did my mother conceive
me. We come forth from the womb speaking,
what? Lies. The old baby learns the
baby lies because that's his nature. And he lies before he
can even say mama. He cries a lie, doesn't he? He
cries a lie. See how sinful we are? Our only
remedy is the gospel of Christ. The only way we can be sweet
and pleasant before the throne of God is to be found in Christ. He came and took the bitterness
and judgment of my sin and gives me the sweetness of his justifying
righteousness in Christ. The Lord has brought His children
home, but before He does, He empties us, and He strips us,
and the almighty hand of God convicts us of our sin. There's
another gospel application here. Before the Lord heals and brings
us to Himself in saving mercy, He afflicts us with the Holy
Spirit conviction. He convicts us of sin, what we
are, of righteousness, what we need, of judgment, what we deserve.
John 16. Someone said, without true Holy
Spirit conviction, there's no true repentance. Where there's
no true repentance, there's no true faith. Where there's no
true faith in Christ, there's no true salvation. Do you get
that? Without true conviction, there's
no true repentance. With true Holy Spirit conviction,
Where there's no true repentance, there's no true faith. Where
there's no true faith in Christ, there's no salvation. Without
faith, it's impossible to please God. Before the Lord fills us
with the blessedness of the gospel, He empties us of all supposed
goodness and righteousness. Before He clothes us with the
garments of salvation, He must strip us and show us that we're
naked poor, blind, and miserable. He must wound us before he heals
us. You see, the way up is not up.
The way up is down, down in submission. He denied them of a broken heart.
And we can truly say the Lord has brought me home. He's a captain
of our salvation who's bringing many sons into glory. Christ also once suffered for
our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God. And we say that our salvation
is of the Lord, don't we? Our salvation is of the Lord.
Now, I'm going to close with this. I heard a message this
week, I was listening to Pastor Mahan, Henry Mahan. on a message
about the mercy seat in preparation for our Bible study on Sunday
morning from Hebrew chapter nine. It was a good, good, good message
on the mercy seat, Christ our mercy seat, Christ our propitiation. But in the end of that message,
he quoted an article by a pastor friend of Brother Mahan and us,
Pastor Maurice Montgomery. Some of you remember Brother
Maurice. He'd been gone for about 10 years now. And Brother Mahan quoted this
article by Brother Montgomery. And the title of the article
was, Things I Cannot Do. Things a sinner cannot do. There
is a holy God I cannot please. In the flesh no man can please
God. There is a holy law I cannot keep. By the deeds of the law
shall no flesh be justified. There is a righteousness I cannot
produce. Right? None righteous, nor not
one. There is a sin I cannot put away.
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. There is a judgment I cannot
escape. It's the pointing of the man
who wants to die. After that's the judgment. There's
a condemnation I cannot endure. Eternal condemnation for the
unbeliever. Well, that was the article. And
that was Tuesday morning. I got over here this morning,
I started thinking about those things, those six things he said. And I thought, what shall we
do? I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. What shall we do? What can a
sinner do? What will he do? Apart from God's grace. We'll
die in our sin if he just leaves us to ourselves. I thought about
this. What I cannot do, the Lord Jesus
Christ did for us. Those six things, the Lord Jesus
Christ did please the Father in all things. He said, this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He said in John
8, for I do always those things that please Him. He did fully
honor and exalt the law of God for us. Everything he did, we
did. It's been charged to us. The
Lord Jesus Christ did bring in everlasting righteousness for
us and freely impute that unto us. You see, everything I cannot
do and will not do, the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.
I cannot put away my sin, but he did. He put away the sin of
God's people by the sacrifice of himself. Christ did take the
judgment for all the sin of God's elect in His own body on the
tree and made full atonement for that. Christ did endure eternal
condemnation for us, and by his sacrifice, we are set free. There's
no condemnation to those who are in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, what I cannot do, I cannot please God, cannot honor the
law, cannot produce righteousness, cannot, cannot, cannot. He did. He did. That's our hope. That's
our hope. May God give us grace to look
to him alone for salvation. Looking unto Jesus, who is the
author and finisher of our faith. Look, he said, I'm the only just
God and Savior, now look. Look, everybody understands the
concept of L-O-O-K. Look, you're looking at me, I'm
looking at you. We all understand the concept
of looking, don't we? Our God said, I am God beside
thee, there is no other. Now look to me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth. That's
what saving faith does. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith.