Let's turn in our Bibles to Ruth chapter 1. And our reading is from verse 15 to the end of the chapter. The Word of God says, Then she said, Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, Do not urge me to leave you, or turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death departs you and me. When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And when they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was stirred because of them. And the woman said, Is this Naomi? She said to them, Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi? Since the Lord has witnessed against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me." So Naomi returned, and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. So, in the past couple of weeks we've been dealing with the themes of God's providence and affliction in the lives of His people. How we are to understand our own suffering in light of an all-powerful and sovereign Father who is also perfectly good and who loves us. Some say that that equation would be impossible. They say, if God were all-powerful and good, He would not allow any suffering. But that's why we're told in Habakkuk 1, verse 5, that the righteous will live by His faith. Because the righteous is taught in Scripture that yes, there is suffering in the world, in a world where the Almighty and good God reigns. However, that suffering is never meaningless. So, suffering never joyful, always sorrowful. but it nonetheless always yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness for the believer. And if anyone's life is an illustration of that, it's that of Naomi. Her trials are giving way to such glorious things that no mortal would ever believe if he were told. The end result of Naomi's sufferings is really the salvation of the whole world, the restoration of the universe, the undoing of the curse. Because through Naomi, Ruth will come to faith, and it is out of Ruth's loins that the Messiah himself, the Lord Jesus, will come. And our passage tonight really picks up with that account of Ruth's conversion. And we get a picture of the fruit of Naomi's affliction here, starting in verse So, verse 15, we get a sense again of the fruit of Naomi's affliction. And it says, Now, at this point, Naomi is still prodding around in Ruth's heart for searching for weaknesses any hint of doubt you remember last week we talked about Naomi's insistence that to get Ruth to go back to Moab and that is really motivated by the fact that Naomi understands just how difficult things will be in Israel for Ruth. And if Ruth wants to continue on with Naomi for any other reason than God Himself, then she will not be able to make it. So Naomi is pressing the issue here. But in verse 15, you see really a change in her approach. Now she's going to try to convince Ruth by way of example. She says, look, your sister-in-law has gone. Why don't you go ahead and join her? She reminds us a little bit of the Lord Jesus here, who turns to the twelve after the disciples have left in John 6, 67. And He says, do you not want to go away also? Now obviously, the key statement here in verse 15 that we cannot miss is that Orba, it says, has gone back to her people and her gods. Notice, Naomi makes going back to the Moabites and to Moab synonymous with going back to idolatry. After all, it would have been next to impossible to live as a worshipper of Yahweh, the God of Israel, among a people who worshipped Chemosh and the gods of Moab. You see how important the communion of the saints is? You see, when you leave the communion of the saints, you go back to Moab and the idolatry of Moab. And by turning her back on Israel, Orpah was turning her back on the God of Israel. And Naomi is telling Ruth, go ahead, do that as well. Now, had the Spirit of God not been at work in Ruth's life, she would not have had a strong reaction to that. I mean, Orpah didn't. She just left. Nevertheless, it's clear that God is doing something wonderful in this woman's soul. You see that even in the first words that she utters. Look at verse 16. It says, do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you. That verb, to urge here, has to do with pressing someone. In fact, it even means to attack. In chapter 2, verse 22, that word is going to be used to talk about the possibility that men might attack Ruth in the fields of Israel. So, Ruth is basically saying, stop verbally attacking me. She's maybe even exasperated. She's gonna hear no more about this. Her mind is made up. She is not going to forsake her mother-in-law, and neither will she return from following her. Oddly enough, it's almost as though the more Naomi had pressed Ruth, the more resolute she had become. When her convictions are challenged, she grows stronger in those convictions. And she'll come after Naomi no matter what. Now, the amazing part in all of this is that Naomi really has nothing material to give to Ruth. She doesn't have sons for her. She doesn't have any riches or even happiness, as we'll see. But Ruth sees her wisdom and her virtue and her grace. And Naomi may have lost everything, but she has not lost those things. And Ruth wants those things for herself. So she cleaves to her mother-in-law. And her pledge of loyalty goes on to become one of the most memorable statements here in the Old Testament. She says in verses 16 and 17, For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be My people, and your God My God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do to me and worse, if anything but death departs you and me. This is really profound language and it contains, if you think about it, six promises followed by an oath. So six promises followed by an oath. That was typical of covenants during that time. They had promises and then oaths. And the first promise in Ruth's covenantal statement here is that she is going to go wherever Naomi goes. She will travel with her. She will go even to a country she has never been to, a country she grew up hearing was a bad place, enemy territory, where she is going to be despised, and where she might even be in physical danger for that reason. Moab and Israel were hostile to each other. Nevertheless, she will go. Naomi's spiritual life is like a strong magnet drawing her. And then she follows that promise to stay where she stays. She says, where you lodge, I will lodge. Now, that might be a puny little tent, right? Because all that Naomi has is probably the clothes on her back. She has nothing. So, Ruth might have to stay in a little hut where she could be cold every night of her life and crammed in. That makes you consider, what kind of woman must Naomi have been? that you know Solomon says in Proverbs 21 9 that it is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman and Proverbs 21 19 says it is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman and yet Ruth is willing to live in a cramped space, or even in a desert land, wherever she might go, just to be with this woman. So the opposite has become true here. Because Naomi is the opposite of contentious. She's virtuous. And Ruth will travel with her and stay with her. Those are the two first promises. I'll travel with you, I'll stay with you. I will take your people as my people." You see, character, or the character of Naomi had been such that Ruth figured that the people... Naomi's people must have been the most noble and understanding and wise people in all the world. In other words, Naomi was an asset. She was a blessing to her country. Ruth thought that she would be happy in the Promised Land if everybody were like Naomi. But that is what's happening. That's what happens when the Lord is at work in our lives. When we're taught to show kindness and live uprightly, we make others desire to be citizens of the same country that we are citizens of. We persuade them that heaven is a world of love. So, not only that, but we also persuade them to forsake idols. Notice it says, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. That's the fourth promise. Your God will be my God. Let Chemosh puff up like the smoke that he is. She is forsaking the gods of Moab, and she's entering into covenant with the God of Israel. He will be her God. You say, Now isn't God already her God? I mean, after all, He created all things, right? And every other God is false. So why does Ruth need to make this statement, your God will be my God? And that's because, of course, we're talking about a special arrangement here. God saves, she worships. In Exodus 6-7, as the Lord is about to take Israel out of Egypt, He says to them, Then I will take you for my people, and I will be your God. And before that, He had told Abraham in Genesis 17 verses 7 and 8, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings and the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. So, what Ruth is saying here is that she's coming under the rule of this same God who has covenanted Himself with Abraham, and He has saved the people of Israel out of Egypt. She's accepting God's commitment to save her, and she's committing to be His. And of course, her worship of God, as the servant of God, will be imperfect. She's gonna sin. We all do sin. But that is precisely why the Lord Jesus Himself has to be the foundation of our own covenant with God. The Lord Jesus had been the foundation of Ruth's covenant with God, even though He has not entered into the earth yet. He had covenanted with the Father in eternity past. He takes the form of a servant. It says in Isaiah 42 and Philippians 2 and John 20 verse 17, you hear the Lord Jesus call the Father, My God. Have you ever wondered that? You say, well, if Jesus is God, how is it that He can call the Father His God? How does that work? And that is because He has become one of us. He has taken on human nature, and He is also God. So when He speaks and calls the Father, My God, He's speaking not as God, but as man. And as man, He obeys the law perfectly on our behalf. And in doing so, He has opened a way for us to take God's name upon our lips. and to call Him our God. He did it first, now we can do it. And in that we entrust our souls to the Lord. So Ruth herself is clearly doing that. She's entrusting herself to the Lord. She's not just thinking about this life, about the here and now. In fact, notice what it says in verse 17, And that's the fifth promise Ruth makes here. But the assumption behind this one is that, number one, both Naomi and Ruth must die, right? Hebrews 9.27, it says, And then comes judgment. That's an unavoidable reality. And we have to face death. And Ruth here sounds actually like Moses in Numbers 23 10. Let me die the death of the upright and let my end be like his. She wants in on the happiness that she knows Naomi is gonna get in the next life. That's why she promises even to be buried with her. I'll join you in life and I'll join you in death. The next phrase says, "...and there I'll be buried." Not back in Moab. I have no part with them either in life or in death. No, bury me here in the place of rest that God had promised His people. Because I am going with my mother-in-law to the real place of rest that the promised land was a mere shadow of. She's entering into that eternal rest. So I'll travel with you. I'll live with you. I'll join myself to your people. Your God will be my God. I will die with you and I will have my bones laid beside your bones. Those are incredible promises, an incredible covenant. And it's joined by a solemn oath here, as covenants usually are. Look at the second sentence in verse 17, Now, she uses here, if you notice, the Lord, the sacred Tetragrammaton, Yahweh, the God of Israel, the same God Naomi worships, and the same God whose blessings Naomi wants for Ruth, that God has just been called into the equation. And Ruth is saying, may the wrath of that God fall upon me if I break these promises. Now Naomi has to get off her back, right? She can't insist anymore. Ruth has just burned her bridges behind her. She's all in, right? This is the effect that Naomi's life had had on Ruth's life. This is, by the way, precisely what the Lord had intended for all the Israelites to be doing. He wanted them to be such a godly people that the Gentiles would be drawn in to the covenant with Israel. They actually felt miserably at it. In fact, they did the opposite. They took the gods of the people. Because they were unconverted as a nation. They had the instructions of Scripture, the instructions of Moses and the guidance, but they did not have the power to follow through with those commandments. Naomi, on the other hand, she has both. Because the Lord has graciously given her His Spirit. And He has shaped her character through affliction. She has made her more useful. And here is a transformed life to prove it. Ruth has become, she's become a proselyte. That's Naomi's fruit. She has a life here, someone who has been transformed because of her testimony. So verse 18 says, when she saw that she, Ruth, was determined to go with her, she said, no more. Notice, by the way, that resolve will drive temptation away. Ruth was being harassed about whether she really wanted to follow through and come with Naomi to the Promised Land. But now that her conviction is set and palpable, the questions are silenced. James 4, 7. Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Ruth has done that. She's been soundly converted through Naomi's testimony. Although, of course, it's not as though Naomi's scars have been erased. The Lord's discipline has made her useful, but she still has to deal with all that has happened to her. And you see that starting in verse 19. It says, so they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And when they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was stirred because of them. And the woman said, is this Naomi? So Naomi is finally back home after a decade. And when she gets there, it says that the whole city stirred up because of them. This means, by the way, that Naomi had been well known In fact, remember chapter 1, verse 2, where it says that hers was a family of Ephrathites in Bethlehem. And we mentioned that that suggests that they were in the upper echelons of that society. And that only makes the fall greater, doesn't it? So it says that the whole city was stirred. The word for stir in the Hebrew denotes a sense of confusion and bewilderment. The people here are disturbed. And the last phrase of verse 19 says, And the women said, Is this Naomi? Imagine, this woman had suffered so much in the last decade that they could not even recognize her. The glory of man is like the flower that fades, isn't it? Isaiah 40 verses 6 and 7, You see, hardship will change a man or a woman, even physically, in a very short time. And then you can even become a kind of public spectacle, especially if you have been well-known before. The women here are talking about Naomi. The whole city's stirred. And I don't know that this is some malicious gossip, although some of it could have been. But we'll see later on that Boaz himself gets the story, and it really is about Ruth's virtue. In chapter 2, verse 11, he says to Ruth, I know about all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother in the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not previously know." So, people were not necessarily mocking Naomi, but still, Naomi's fall and her humbling is public. And she has been, she's in the spotlight. And yet notice the humility surrounding her response to all of this. Verse 20 says, dealt bitterly with me." Now remember, in the Old Testament, names were often used to describe a person's character or even his life circumstances. Nabal was called a fool, and then he lives up to be a fool. Solomon means peaceful or peace, and his reign ends up being one of peace. So a name could describe your circumstances. And the name Naomi means pleasant or sweet. This had been true of this woman at some point, but now she's saying, call me Mara. That's the Hebrew for bitter. So clearly, Naomi is struggling to see here. How can anything in her life turn out for good? How can the Lord bring sweetness out of such a bitter situation? And yet, in all of it, she's still embracing divine providence. She's not hiding her fall. She's back in town. She's not in some other town. But rather, she's facing people and saying, look at me. God has done this to me. You can go ahead and call me bitter, because the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. The name Almighty in the Hebrew is Shaddai. And on the one hand, that title emphasizes God's omnipotence, that He is all-powerful. So as we noted last time, Naomi is not really blaming blind luck here. She's not saying that her circumstances were due to bad fate. No, she knows she lives in God's world. And He has brought about her conditions. Now, on the other hand, the title Shaddai was a title that the patriarchs had used. And they usually employed it to speak of God's power to bless. So Naomi really is saying here, the only God who can bless has taken His blessing away from me. And then she continues that line of thought in verse 21, Notice, she's saying, I went out. And then she says, the Lord has brought me back. She did wrong in leaving, and she was right in returning. She's taking responsibility for what she's doing wrong, and she's giving the credit to the Lord for what she has done right. And that's how we should always be. We are responsible for our sin, always responsible. And yet the Lord is the one who is behind any good that comes through us. He brought Naomi back. But that, in itself, that bringing back of Naomi had been a very painful process. She had gone out full. For her that meant a husband and two sons, but she had returned empty. She had lost them. God had disciplined her. Not necessarily that He had taken their lives directly as a result of their leaving the Promised Land. We said that we can't be that simplistic about this and put God in a kind of formula. There are others who have probably done the same thing that did not lose their lives. Nevertheless, the reality is that at the end of the day, Naomi suffered. And she sees her suffering here as part of God's discipline. In fact, notice she says, the Lord again, the covenant name of God. And she says He has witnessed, which is a legal term. So she's basically saying, I have been unfaithful to the covenant and the Lord's fatherly discipline has followed. The Almighty, the all-powerful One has afflicted me. So the reality is that Naomi is struggling. Sure, she's hurting. And she doesn't want to even be called sweet anymore, but bitter. However, she knows that God is merely being faithful to her. He's being true to His covenant. And we can commend her faith at that point. that even if she could not see how things ever would work for good, she trusted that the Lord is faithful and that He is reigning. And actually, that He has good in store for her. She doesn't see that, but the reality is that it is there. She does have a good prospect, a good future. And that starts coming out in verse 22. It says at the beginning, Now you have to ask, why is the author, at this point, repeating the main line of the story? We know she returned. We know that. We know that Ruth had gone back with her. Why is he saying that again? And maybe it's because he wants us to start seeing things from a different perspective, if you will. Naomi is back. She's back in town. And she may not have a husband or sons anymore, but as it turns out, she's not nearly as empty as she thinks she is, right? I mean, Ruth is standing right next to her. And she's described here as the Moabites, who returned from the land of Moab. In other words, Naomi's brought back a converted Gentile. She does have someone, and that person has the Holy Spirit. But more than that, the Messiah Himself will come through that woman. So, the woman that Naomi has brought back will be instrumental in the salvation of the world. if Naomi could see that. But she doesn't. But such are the ways of God in the world that they're impossible to trace sometimes. Scalper said, God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps on the sea and rides upon the storm. And one writer said, you see the problem with footsteps planted on the sea is that they can't be traced. They don't live a print. So God works in a way that you and I can't see. So we have to trust Him, that He has a perfect plan. And it's always for good. Notice, not only does Naomi have her daughter-in-law, but she also happens to have good timing. Good timing. It says at the end of verse 22, And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. Now remember, this was an agricultural society. And life for them revolved around three harvests. And the barley harvest was the first of those three. And that was followed by a wheat harvest just a few weeks later. So it was the springtime. And the land is in its best conditions. And there's an abundance of food that is about to crop up. And you know what that means? It means that Ruth will find some work. And she will find work with the man who will go on to become her husband. So, Naomi may have left during a famine, but by the time she's back, there's plenty. And she will soon see God's smile upon her once again. So let's remember tonight to trust Him and rest in Him. And that it was not for nothing that Paul said in Philippians 4.4, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice.