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For our sermon text, we're going
to re-read a couple of short passages from the book of Ruth. First, Ruth chapter 1, verses
19 through 21. And afterward, Ruth chapter 4,
verses 14 through 17. So, Ruth chapter 1, starting
in verse 19. 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 Almighty
hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the
Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi,
seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty
hath afflicted me?" And then chapter 4, verses 14 through
17, And the women said unto Naomi,
Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without
a kinsman. that his name might be famous
in Israel, and he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life,
and a nourisher of thine old age. For thy daughter-in-law,
which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath
borne him.' And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom,
and became nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbors,
gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi. and they
called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the
father of David." We saw in the first service today
how Naomi left Bethlehem in time of famine with a husband and
two sons. The way she herself describes
her condition when she went out from Israel, she said, I went
out full. A time of famine, but in reflecting
back to it, she says, I went out full. I had my husband and
I had my sons. A time of chastening. And she and her husband Elimelech
don't submit to the chastening hand of God, but flee it and
seek satisfaction in a foreign land, a land of sin and idolatry,
even in Moab." We know that they sinned grievously in Moab because
they married their sons to Moabite women. The Lord pursued them
in His chastisement into Moab. You cannot escape the chastisement
of God. The chastening hand of God will
follow you. The only thing to do under God's
chastening hand is to submit to it. But God's chastening hand followed
them to Moab. Elimelech died. Her two sons
died. young, we don't know just how
old they are, we aren't told, but they didn't have any children
yet. Naomi, well we read the story
earlier of how Naomi and her daughters-in-law were discussing
what to do and in the end Orpah left her at Naomi's bidding and
Ruth clung to her. And so now she returns back to
Israel bereft of her husband and her
two sons as a woman rebuked of God and feeling the rebuke of
God. 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? Is this Naomi coming back without a Limelech, without Without
Killian, is this the woman who was seeking better fortunes in
the land of Moab coming back unto us, desolate? And we may, we would do well
to think of Job's friends, in Job 2 verse
12, when they lifted up their eyes afar off and knew him not,
they lifted up their voice and wept. And they rent everyone
his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.
Is this Job? Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara. The word Naomi means pleasant.
It can even mean beautiful. Pleasant. The name Mara means
bitter. Call me not pleasant, call me
bitter. For the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me. I went out full. and the Lord
hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi? Seeing
the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted
me. We'll have two basic sections
to our sermon this afternoon. The first is, Naomi, a woman
reproved. And the second, Naomi, a woman
redeemed. The Almighty, she says, hath
dealt very bitterly with me. And upon a cursory reading, you
may think that Ruth is well doing the thing that it says Job didn't
do, which was charge God foolishly. That she's murmuring and complaining
against God. But I don't think that's the
case at all. Would you not say that the Lord
had brought her to a place of bitterness, to be bereft of her
husband and her sons? One of the main reasons I don't
think that she is complaining against God or charging God foolishly
is because she justifies God. vindicates God's good name in
it saying, verse 21, the Lord hath testified against me. The Lord has brought this bitterness
upon me for my sins. He's brought this upon me to
bring my sins in remembrance and to testify against me. We read something similar in Lamentations chapter 3. In Lamentations chapter 3, Jeremiah
meditates at length upon the bitterness and severity of the
chastening of God toward him. Lamentations chapter 3, I am
the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath
led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against
me as he turned, he turneth his hand against me all the day.
My flesh and my skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me, encompassed
me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places
as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that
I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy.
Also, when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. He hath
enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked.
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in secret
places. He hath turned aside my ways.
and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. He
hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath
caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. I was
a derision to all my people and their song all the day. He hath
filled me with bitterness." Same word. He hath filled me with
bitterness. He hath made me drunken with
wormwood. Jeremiah, in this chapter, is allowing the smarting hand of
God and the bitterness of the afflictions which God has pressed
upon him to teach him a lesson. He's allowing it to sink in and
reach his heart. And that's what we have Naomi
doing. When she says, call me not Naomi,
call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with
me. The Almighty hath afflicted me. He's testified against me and
brought my sins up before him. When God brings us into times
of chastisement, how are we to respond to it? Well, we can do no better than taking
our direction from Hebrews 12, a brief statement, despise not
the chastening of the Lord. neither faint when thou art rebuked
of him." And so we'll take those two things as an outline of this
section. First of all, despise not the
chastening of the Lord. To despise something, oftentimes
in our culture today, the word despise used to mean hate. That's
not the traditional definition of that word. It's not the definition
of it when you read the word despise in your Bible. To despise
is to think lightly of something. Despise not the chastening of
the Lord. Don't despise, don't think lightly
of it when God brings His chastening hand upon you. Indeed, don't
think lightly of it when God threatens to bring His chastening
hand upon you. We despise God's chastening in several different ways, the
first of which, we despise God's chastening when we fail to realize
that we're being chastened. when we fail to even realize
that we're being chastened, when our hearts are so dull and our minds are so darkened
under the chastening hand of God that we see our afflictions
and we don't consider what the providence of God may be doing
through those afflictions. So instead, we simply live in dullness and stupidity
under the chastening hand of God. We harden our hearts. We may complain. but we don't look about and consider
what God is doing in our lives. We've all seen people who, through
their own sinful choices, are living lives that you would
never wish on anybody, right? were living lives through their
own sinful choices that were lives of destitution, lives of
destruction, destroying themselves, destroying those around them.
And they just go on in it and act like the difficult things
about their lives are just, well, they're just chance. It's just
something that's happened to me. I don't know why my life's
this way. That is to fail to realize the cause. And indeed, when we fail to realize
that we're being chastened by the hand of God, we live in just
such spiritual stupidity. We despise God's chastening when
we explain it away. We despise God's chastening when
we fail to improve it, meaning we fail to make good use of it. We'll talk about that a little
later. We despise God's chastening also when we harden ourselves
against God and harden ourselves against His chastening, murmuring
against God and and not considering our own sins,
not searching out our own ways. Despise not God's chastening. What should we do rather than
despising God's chastening? We should own it. We should own
it. Own the severity of it. That's
what Ruth does when she says, The Almighty hath
dealt bitterly with me. The Almighty hath afflicted me.
So own the severity of it and own that it is indeed chastening. The Lord hath testified against
me. You'll never benefit from chastening
if you refuse to take to heart the severity of it, and if you
refuse to take to heart the fact that it is indeed chastening. Concerning the severity of it,
a simple illustration occurs to my mind. Many of us here are parents. Sometimes if a child does something particularly bad, you might,
in spanking them, give them a few extra licks to drive home to
them the severity of their offense. And so when we're under the chastening
hand of God, we ought to consider the severity of it, because God
measures out the severity of it in order to teach us, just
like the parent measures out the severity of the spanking
to teach the child. So despise not the chastening
of the Lord, neither faint when you are rebuked
by him." So if despising the chastening of the Lord is thinking
too little of it and not considering it and not taking it to heart,
to faint under God's chastening is to despair of God's goodness
in chastening. You see, these are two opposite
errors on either side of the road, right? Don't give in to despair under
chastening. And I have some reasons not to
faint. What are some reasons not to
faint? Well first, and we'll draw again from Lamentations
3 for these things, largely from Lamentations 3. So we saw earlier
in what we read from Lamentations 3, we saw Jeremiah taking to
heart the severity of the chastening, right? But here, from verse 21
and forward, we see Jeremiah not fainting under the chastening,
but hoping under the chastening. So why not, reasons not to faint. What are some reasons not to
faint? First, chastening is a mercy. Chastening is a mercy. Lamentations
3, verse 27, he said, it is good for a man that he bear the yoke
in his youth. It is good for a man that he
bear the yoke in his youth. It's a mercy. Indeed, Hebrews
12 that we read earlier talks about it as one of the privileges
of our adoption. God chastens every son whom he
receives. If you're not chastened, then
you're bastards and not sons. Chastening is one of our privileges. You pity the child who doesn't
have anyone to chasten him when he does wrong. A chastening of God toward his
children is one of the privileges of their adoption. This is a
reason not to faint. This is a reason for us to have
our hearts lifted up toward God under chastening. Second reason
not to faint. Chastening, no chastening is
an end in itself. God doesn't chasten His children
just to chasten His children. He's not an abusive Father. In verse 33 of Lamentations 3
it says, For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children
of men. What's that mean, he doth not
afflict willingly? Well, the meaning is, God's goal is not
afflicting his child. His goal is accomplishing something
through afflicting his child. God doesn't set out to torment
his people. but to shepherd them and to lead
them. He doth not afflict willingly,
nor grieve the children of men." And indeed we read in Hebrews
12, the chastening yieldeth fruit, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness, of holiness to those who are exercised by
it. So chastening is not an end in
itself. God is working good things for
you if you are under His chastening hand. This is a reason not to
faint. This is a reason to be encouraged
even as we humble ourselves low. We ought not to faint under God's
chastening hand because God measures His chastisements. In verse 22
of Lamentations 3, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not
consumed because His compassions fail not. God doesn't let out
the floodgates on us. God measures His chastening and
it's of His mercies we're not consumed under His chastening. In Psalm 118, verse 18, the Lord
hath me chastised and sore, but not to death given over. The Lord measures his chastisements. He's not, well, we read in Hebrews
12 about the father, the earthly father who chastens his child
for his own pleasure, right? Who just takes out all the stops
and just gives himself up to afflicting
his child. But that's not how the Lord our
God is in his chastening hand toward us. He measures them out.
to just what we need for our benefit. And then finally, we
ought not to faint because the Lord will not cast off forever,
verse 31. We were seeing this in Psalm
30 earlier, that weeping Well, that his anger endureth
for a moment. His anger endureth for a moment,
right? Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes with the morning.
So the Lord will not cast off forever. And these are reasons
to be encouraged, even under God's chastening hand. So what about for Naomi? She was brought to the place
of bitterness. She was brought to feel her bitterness. But what was the Lord working
for her? Chapter 4. She went out full and she came
back empty, right? No sons, no husband. Ruth chapter 4, verse, let's see here, verse 15. For thy daughter-in-law,
which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath
borne him. Naomi's lost two sons, yes, Naomi's
lost two sons, but she's gained a daughter-in-law who truly is
better to her than seven sons. And the Lord was merciful to
her throughout it all, right? He provided for her through Ruth
and through Boaz jointly, right? So Naomi as a woman redeemed,
what about when the Lord turned again her captivity. This is the way that it's put
in the book of Job. At the end of Job, after God
has afflicted Job with tremendous bitterness, right? Taken away
his family, taken away all of his possessions. It says that,
then the Lord turned his captivity. And indeed here at the end of
the book of Ruth, the Lord turns Naomi's captivity. And It's a bit, it might be a
bit unexpected the way that some of these things are said about
Naomi that you might have expected them to say about Ruth at the
end of the book, right? The women said unto Naomi, blessed
be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman. And then in verse 17, there is
a son born to Naomi. Did Naomi have a son at the end
of the book? Well, not her own son. She had
a grandson. But the way it worked in redeeming Ruth, Boaz was redeeming both
Naomi and Ruth, right? So the land which had belonged
not just to Ruth's husband, but the land that had belonged to
both Naomi's husband would be the inheritance of the child.
So the child was actually legally reckoned Naomi's child. Naomi's child. And the Lord has turned her captivity
at the end of this. He's restored to her the years
that the locusts have eaten away. Right? He has given her beauty
for ashes. He has given her pleasantness
for her bitterness. He has turned her captivity. Now it's difficult in reading
this to make direct applications from the Lord's mercy to Naomi
and the way that He turned her captivity to us under our chastening. Because I can't say how the Lord
will pour out His blessing to you. if you yield to his chastening
hand. He has his own special blessings
that he pours out on each of his children in the way that
he blesses them. We have it, again, we have it
in Job, right? The ways that the Lord poured
out his blessing upon Job at the end of the book. We have
this for Naomi. However, we can bear up under
our afflictions, be encouraged, even as we're yielding ourselves
to the chastening of God, owning His chastening, owning the severity
of it, owning it as chastening, we can have hope all through
it, right? What's our... Let's see here. Back in Lamentations. hope in the midst of chastening. Starting in verse 28, he sitteth
alone and keepeth silence. This is talking about the man
who is bearing the yoke in his youth, the man who is under the
chastening hand of God. This is how he improves his chastening. This is how he makes a good use
of his chastening. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because
he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust,
if so be there may be hope. So sitting alone and keeping
silence. Solitude and silence. This is meditating upon the judgments
of God. This is meditating upon the chastening
of God. He giveth this cheek to him that
smiteth him. He's filled full with reproach.
He owns it. I'm Mara. I am not Naomi. I am Mara, filled full with reproach. Four, the Lord will not cast
off forever, but though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the multitude of his mercies. So we can humble
ourselves all the way down to the depths of the bitterness
of what the Lord has put on us with hope in our hearts that
as we humble ourselves low that he will raise us again because
he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Though he cause grief yet will
he have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. And we have this again and again
in the scriptures when the Lord lays upon someone His chastening
and lays upon them afflictions and so forth. And once they're
exercised by them and once they've been taught the lesson by them,
Once they've humbled themselves under God's affliction, when
God turns their captivity, again, as it says in Job, it's abundantly better for them in
the end than it was at the beginning. There's a wonderful chapter in
the book of Isaiah, passage in Isaiah 54, that I think is It's just, it beautifully, it's
about God turning the captivity of Israel after the Babylonian exile. But I think as I read it here,
you will hear how closely it parallels the Lord's dealings
with Naomi herself. Chapter 54, verses 1 through
8 of Isaiah. Sing, O barren, thou that didst
not bear. Break forth into singing, and
cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child. For more
are the children of the desolate than the children of the married
wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent,
and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations.
Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes, for
thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, thy
seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities
to be inhabited. Fear not, for thou shalt not
be ashamed, neither shalt thou be confounded, for thou shalt
not be put to shame. For thou shalt forget the shame
of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood
any more. For thy Maker is thy husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer, same word,
thy Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole
earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee
as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, And a wife of youth,
when thou wast refused, saith thy God, for a small moment have
I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have
mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. Naomi, a woman redeemed. Let us seek the face of our God
in prayer. Our Lord and our God, we look
to Thee Lord, fill us. Though these be but a few thoughts and simple,
few loaves and a few fishes, Lord God, fill us and help us to go on
the strength of this meat many days that we're able to multiply unto
us, bread from heaven. So be gracious
unto us. We look to thee. Redeem thou
us. We ask it in Jesus' name.
Naomi's Redemption
| Sermon ID | 91422183122393 |
| Duration | 37:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Ruth 1:19-21; Ruth 4:14-17 |
| Language | English |
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