Naomi and Ruth (Part A)

If they had named this little book, the book of Naomi, I would not have objected. And that they did name it the book of Ruth, I have no objection.

But you can't, if you start digging into the character of Naomi, you come up with some treasures. And of course, Ruth being the outsider, the stranger, the person in great need, she represents the church. That's who we are as individuals within the body of Christ. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Ruth.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, here's Pastor Rick in the book of Ruth chapter one, as he begins a brand new message called Naomi and Ruth. Ruth chapter one, Naomi and Ruth. Now, of course, we finished Judges with those two awful stories that took up four chapters.

And we're still really in the book of Judges. That's where the story of Ruth takes place. And this story is promising and is filled with hope. It's a beautiful story. I'm not so ready to say it's a love story. In fact, the word love only shows up one time in this short little book. It may have taken place in the days of Eli, who came before Samuel, who was the last of the judges.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that this was an appendix to the book of Judges, which is kind of weird because the last four chapters of Judges are an appendix to Judges. But I'll give you an idea of how it was received by the Jews. A story of kindness, no question about that. And I think Christians can always use some help with kindness.

It's not automatic. It's kindness not to everyone. It's something many of us have to fight for.

Or should I say many of you have to fight for. And there are two books in the Bible that are named after women, Ruth and, of course, Esther. One is this Jewish girl that marries, of course, the king, Hasiaris, and that is the story of Esther.

And the other is a Gentile woman who marries a Jewish, a prominent Jewish man named Boaz. This theme, as I've mentioned, with kindness, concerns itself with redemption. Now, looking at it from a Jewish perspective, I mean, it's not the same as looking at it from a Christian perspective.

We have a lot more pixels than they do. When we look at our picture of redemption, they have the Old Testament sacrifices and, of course, the love expressed through the prophets, but not like we have it through the cross of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. And what we really have as New Testament believers are Jesus' teachings on the Father, which are in themselves magnificent.

So a hard beginning, of course, to the story, but it opens up, it has a happy ending, the family facing famine. A lot said about this little book of judges that I think is, it goes back and forth, and I'll say this again probably this evening. In my own life, as a pastor teaching from judges, I used to be pretty hard on Naomi. Naomi is the star, and Ruth really is not the star to me. Now, I've changed.

I see it a whole different light. Take Naomi out of the picture. You don't have Ruth, and we'll get to that. And some of you might say, okay, I don't like you anymore because it says Ruth on my coffee cup, and here you come with your little theory.

And maybe I should say it this way. If they had named this little book the book of Naomi, I would not have objected. And that they did name it the book of Ruth, I have no objection.

But you can't, if you start digging into the character of Naomi, you come up with some treasures. And of course, Ruth being the outsider, the stranger, the person in great need, she represents the church. That's who we are as individuals within the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 6, for you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are gods, which belongs to God that is. And of course, in this story of Ruth, she is redeemed by Boaz. He pays for her according to the Liverite laws that they were subject to in those days, and it is a beautiful picture of redemption in that. It also tells us that outsiders are allowed into the kingdom. Well, I'll try not to deal with too much of the history this time as we go through. In fact, out of the 85 verses in Ruth, 55 of them are dialogue.

It's a people book, people talking to each other. And of course, the Holy Spirit has preserved it because he has authored the scripture in our favor to our benefit. But Yahweh, the covenant name of the Lord, and again, some can say Jehovah as opposed to Yahweh, though there's no J sound in the Hebrew.

It's Yah. And in that, the whole Jehovah witnesses are wrong again. But we won't go into that. We'll have plenty of time to do that in the New Testament. Just looking over, if there's anything to draw out that you might find interesting, salvation. Salvation includes love. We understand, and it includes need, and those two should not be separated. We have no right to sin, and we do, anyway, because of our flesh. But there should always be this sustained war in the Christian heart against those things that are foul. And the question that the Lord asks all of us is, do you love me?

Do you need me? Because they go together. They do as far as salvation goes. But when it comes to salvation, he's not asking us, are you faithful to me? He doesn't ask us when it comes to salvation, are you going to the mission field? He does not ask us how much do we tithe? He does not ask, what are your views on Calvinism?

He wants to know if you love him. And that love is based on knowledge of him. It's based on a relationship, personal, with him, as the story in Ruth is based on personal relationships, a personal relationship between Naomi and Ruth, and one between Naomi and Boaz, and then Boaz and Ruth, and Naomi and the people of Bethlehem.

It is a story of people. When Jesus was rebuilding Peter, after Peter, of course, that disaster in his life, where he boasted of his loyalty to the Lord, and then collapsed completely under the pressure, and God builds him back up, and of course the Lord Jesus builds him up, and just this part from John's Gospel 21, he said to him a third time, you see the emphasis put on that, this is the third time that the Lord is asking him in a short period of time, and the question that he says is, Simon son of Jonah, do you love me? And music, Christian music, is supposed to help us love the Lord.

Now stay in touch with that love, I put it that way, especially when you're drying up. That is one of the beauties that belongs to the Psalms. And so here this book of redemption, Titus chapter 2, Paul speaking of Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.

Any time you feel lazy when it comes to righteousness, you know that's not the Holy Spirit, that's your own, and those things are supposed to be resisted. The author of this little book, this is incidentally an introduction to Ruth, we'll get grown in a minute, but these are important little things, and this is what's important about Ruth, we don't know who the author is. We know it comes around after David, it's likely we would like to say, well Samuel is is the one who, Samuel anointed David to be king as he did with Saul also, but providing the book at the right time to show the pedigree of David, that's a good theory, but it's not backed up by scriptures.

So here's a brief outline to this little book. In chapter 1, of course, we have God's people in the land of Moab outside the promised land. In chapter 2, we find them back in the promised land in the fields of Boaz, and then in chapter 3, at the threshing floor of Boaz, that's where the action is taking place, and then in chapter 4, it is the heart and the home of Boaz, and the story will close there. So we look now at verse 1, now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

Well I said I was going to hold back or tone down the historical info, so I'm not going to really lean into Moab, just sort of release a little bit at a time who they were. But it starts off in verse 1, now it came to pass in the days of the judges, and that is of course from about the time of Joshua's death, or certainly after Joshua's death, until the time that King Saul is coronated by Samuel. And in those days, we know that there was no king in Israel, everyone did according to the dictates of his own heart what was right in his own eyes, these are the days that the story of Ruth takes place. This phrase, it came to pass, well it's a frequent phrase in the Old Testament, it's God's way of saying that you know we're marching towards eternity and you know what you're doing now, what will it matter a thousand years from now, because it's going to pass this moment, but maybe not entirely. Six Old Testament books at least start off with this, it came to pass right in the first sentence. Joshua, judges, Ruth, second Samuel, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah all use that phrase, it should be an encouragement if you, especially if you're struggling, it's going to come to pass, things will move on.

This is phrased this way because as it is in the other books, it's a continuing story of the human experience, everything in life comes to pass. There was a famine in the land, famines in Israel were the outcome of disobedience because God and chapters like Leviticus 26 had emphasized to them that there were blessings and there were curses and part of the blessings were if you keep your act together as a people, I will bless the land, there'll be no famine. And famines were frequent in the promised land, even before the Jews as a people entered in, the days of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We find Abraham running from the famine, we find Isaac running from the famine, and in both cases they got in trouble. Jacob was beckoned out of the famine into Israel and that was an exception amongst the patriarchs.

And so there is this famine and again the disobedience in the promised land, so they're looking to where's the food, they're going to go 70 miles around the Dead Sea to get away from the struggle there. Yes, ourselves, what if our leaders were devout men of God? I mean all of them. What if all of the scientists, what if all of the university professors, and this is get ready for this one, what if journalists were people of God?

What kind of history, what would happen, how different things would be? Well, they're not. And so the battle is for souls and not for a life in paradise on earth. It could be there was a famine because of invaders, because that's part of the story of judges, but either way they're looking to get away from the pressure and the rabbis in their writings, they slam this family for that and they don't let up into the sons marrying these Moabite women. He says here in verse one, and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to dwell in the country of Moab.

So this decision is questionable. Should he have stayed in the promised land where the famine was like so many of the others, if not all of the others that we know about? I'm sure he wasn't the only Jewish man to take his family out of there, but it's an easy question to ask when you know as you're considering this chapter and you start feeling hungry, you just go get something to eat. There's no pressure. I mean it's a very serious business.

How am I going to feed myself? And this is something that he felt, well, you know, the patriarchs, they did it as I mentioned before. Well, you can point to Jacob, not a good example than Abraham and Isaac. And so he abandons the promised land with his family and trekking this long distance, the sad part of the story is that there will be three graves dug in Moab for Jewish men, these three Jewish men. The father and him elect by name and his two boys and that opens up the story for us. And so perhaps the fact remains that without this move of this man, Ruth never would have joined herself to this family.

We wouldn't have the story as it is. I don't like that kind of approach, but it's something that you have to grapple with a little bit because in life sometimes as a Christian there just are no answers, not no answers looking back. You just can't, why was this and why was that?

It makes no sense. It's just, you know, and so you just have, you look for your answers going forward. You have no choice and that's what Paul was saying when he said, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward to the things which are ahead, I press on towards the mark for the prize, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul said, I'm not caught up in the past and you find when people look at the past all the time with regret they become bitter and difficult to deal with, but when they're pressing forward, blazing new trails, looking to provide solutions, then they become of course gallant in the faith. And so when trouble comes into our lives, we can do a couple of things. We can endure it. We can try to escape it. We can try to use it. Probably an element of all of those belong to it, but trying to use the pressure that comes in our lives because it's a law of physics that pressure makes things contract and so you know the pressures aren't squeezing you. What's going to come out? And of course, that's why we like Paul and Jeremiah because we see these men being pressed and what comes out of them is beneficial to us.

I want that. Their honesty and their perseverance. Verse 2 continues, in the name of the man was Ahimelech, in the name of his wife Naomi, in the name of his wife Naomi, in the names of his two sons were Malhon, Killian, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah, and they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Well, Ahimelech, the names, the meanings of the names in this little book are quite interesting.

Ahimelech means God is my king. Malhon is first son and it's pronounced a little differently in the Hebrew but I don't speak Hebrew so I'm going to pronounce it the way I look at it. Malhon means sickly. His brother's name, Killian, means wasting away or failing. Not very good names to stick on your kids.

Hi, my name is sickly. Naomi's name means joy. So mom and dad grab the good names.

God is my king and joy but the boys get stuck with these. They were probably born that way. One commentator said they were probably named after the times they were born in and I don't think so. I don't think there was a famine so much in time they were born.

I think they were sickly and just made it through them through birth. Naomi will try to rename herself. You know, she gets this dramatic moment. Don't call me Naomi Pleasant. Call me Mara Bitter. You know, don't call me Pleasant.

Call me Bitter. But anyway, Orpah, who is the Moabite daughter-in-law of Naomi who goes back to her people, her name means neck, like of an animal, and the implication is stiff neck, stubborn. And maybe, I don't know, when she was at birth and it was soon after when they named her, they just, you know, she's a stubborn little thing. Ruth, friendship, is the meaning of her name. Boaz, his name sounds as strong, strength. That's the name what Boaz means, strength.

And Obed, who will be his son, the name means worshiper. So all the names, if you know, you go over them, you do a little look up on the names, you find that it does tell a story in and of itself. Well, as I mentioned, the children named after the circumstances, so much, so rich with history is this section here on these characters. For example, these two boys are sickly and they're living in Moab territory. That means they're not, and there's no nice Jewish girls around, so they marry these Moabite girls, who are probably not, I don't want to say they're unattractive, but they're not as like Esther and Abigail and Sarah, where their beauty is pointed out. And that is just a true part of the story, that these two women were more, what we would say, plain Janes.

There's just nothing outstanding about them, but not necessarily, again, unattractive. Because the Moabite men would not have been, you know, cooperating, the Moabite families would not have been cooperating with that, with them on this, and I think that comes, that plays some significance in the story when Ruth and Boaz begin, when they meet, and we'll come to that in several chapters from now. And I think it also makes the story down to earth, because, you know, you just can't put, you know, Hollywood tries to put the best socially appealing faces before us, and with no regard to reality, and the Bible does not do that. It says they were, in Bethlehem, Ephrathites, that's the ancient name for Bethlehem, and they went to the country of Moab, following the food, again, I've already commented on that, and when they got to the land of the Moabites, to some degree they would have to assimilate. The Moabites worship, their primary god was Chemosh.

Child sacrifice was associated with him, very much so. We get that in the book of Kings, second Kings would come across it outright, but these were enemies of God's people, the Moabites. Moses had to deal with Balaam, who was asked by Balak, the Moabite king, to come curse the Jews.

Eud had to deal with Eglon, you know, he stabbed him and the knife was swallowed up because Eud was, you know, he was pretty heavy, and they were Moabites, and you say, well, with this history of conflict between the two, why, why are they moving, going to Moab's territory? Wouldn't they say, you know, these are our enemies, we're not going there. Well, interesting enough, people get over things, even as nations from time to time.

Not always, but from time to time, for example, just I think yesterday, the Israeli Air Force had a joint operation in Germany with the German Air Force. Well, you know, you can look back and this was just a little while ago, Nazi Germany, Germany was trying to exterminate the Jews, and yet things change. Here they are as allies, and it's not been that long of a time. So there's another true part of the story, you could say. Verse 3, then Ahimelech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab, the name of one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth, and they dwelt there about 10 years. Verse 3, it just passes over it, her husband died, it leaves out all the pain, the sorrow that goes with that. Of course, if you've ever gone through these things, you know what's involved. In verse 4, these are the two wives that married these two Jewish men.

Ten years and no children. I think because the men were sickly, I mean, we get that indication because Ruth does end up having a child with Boaz, but that 10 years away from home was Naomi's life. They were, when they left the Promised Land, they left a place of worship, and when they left the place of worship behind, you know, it gets risky. We see this today when Christians relocate for whatever reason and worship is not a primary, you know, it's not essential, trouble is not far behind, but often we see Christians move away for a job or school or whatever and they look for a place to worship and they go about it. It may take a little time to find the ideal place, but they know it's very important and they stay balanced, but when they don't and they're left by themselves, there are consequences.

I think there's a little bit of that here. When they left the Promised Land, they left Shiloh behind, but we know that there were problems at Shiloh during the days of Eli, and we'll be getting that when we get to Samuel. Now we go at verse 5, then both Malhon and Killian also died, so the woman survived her two sons and her husband.

No surprise given their names that it seems to be a premature death, perhaps they died together, perhaps there was an accident, perhaps they really doesn't tell us what happened, but here poor Naomi lost her husband and now her two boys. The depth of her sorrow, I think, goes deeper than the sorrow of Ruth Orper looking at it that way, and it looks like these tragedies, these two, they happened in rapid succession, one after the other. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Ruth. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. There you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick, and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app, or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as we continue to learn more from the book of Ruth, right here on Cross Reference Radio.