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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/murray-mccandless/naomi/
Book of Ruth, please, in Chapter 1. Book of Ruth in Chapter 1. We've been hearing from Mr. Beatty about famines, and I just want to follow that. When Mr. Dunshire said something about Ruth in 2, he mentioned a couple of things.
I thought he was going to eviscerate my message, but it didn't happen, so we'll give you what we've got here. Ruth, Chapter 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 sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife, and his two sons, and the name of the man was Elimelech, the name of the wife Naomi.
And they came to his two sons, Malan and Chilian, and the Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah, and they came into the country of Moab and continued there. Now, well, just read a little further. Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left, and her two sons, and they took them, wives of the women of Moab.
The name of the one was Orpha, and the name of the other was Ruth, and they dwelled there. Now, just notice the downward move here. It's sojourn in verse number one, and then we get to verse number two, it's continued there, and finally you get to verse number four, they are dwelling there.
About ten years, and Malan and Chilian died, also the both of them, and the women also left of her two sons and her husband. And she arose with her daughter in law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread.
Wherefore, she went forth out of the place where she was, her two daughters in law with her, and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return, each to his, her mother's house, and the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead and with me.
The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and wept, and they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.
And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters. Why will ye go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, verse 12, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.
If I should say, I have hope, if I should have a husband also tonight, and should also bear sons, would ye tarry for them, notice this expression, very important, till they are grown, would ye stay for them from having husbands?
Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpha kissed her mother in law, and Ruth clave unto her, and she said, Behold, thy sister is gone back unto the people, unto her gods.
Return now after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following thee after thee. Whither thou goest, I will go. Whither thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Where thou diest, will I die. There will I be buried, and the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me, and so on. Well, I must read verse 18, when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.
So they two went together until it came to Bethlehem. 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 you notice the word is, is a supplied word, this Naomi?
And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very betterly 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?
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. Last chapter, please, chapter four to the last, near the end of the chapter, and this of course is verse 13.
So Boaz took Ruth, verse 13, chapter 4. She was his wife, and when she went into her, the Lord gave her conception that she bear a son. The woman said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord which hath left thee this day without a kinsman, that this his name may be famous in Israel.
And she shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, a nourisher of thine old age, for thy daughter-in-law which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and became a 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 and the father of David. Now Mr. Beatty was rightly reminding us of chapters in our lives, and I don't have time to pick up on the four chapters here, but we're going to not so much speak on Ruth, which is a delightful subject and a delightful character, but I want to speak on Naomi.
The book of Ruth, true, is about Ruth, but it's very much about this woman, Naomi. She almost is the key player, if I could use that expression, in the book of Ruth. It's interesting, there are two books in your Bibles that have Gentiles' names, Ruth and Luke, but both tell much about widows.
Everyone knows that. Ruth, all the time is about widows here, and Luke does the same thing. Two books in your Bibles that bear women's names. The one, of course, as you know, is Ruth, and the other is Esther.
This is very unique, that in these two books, one has to do with a Jewish man marrying a Gentile woman, Ruth. That's divine grace. When we come to the book of Esther, it's just the reverse of that, if you like.
It's a Jewish woman marrying a Gentile man, and so we just see the reverse of that. That's divine government, but both of them have to do with the recovery of the Lord's people, the recovery of the Lord's people.
When it comes to restoration, which is something we want to touch on here, I think it is significant that the ratio in restoration is one out of four. Four get away. One is restored with great blessing, and the other three just seem to go off the page of history.
Here was a woman that got over something that a lot of brethren never get over, bitterness. Any men that have tried to shepherd and lead and direct God's people, or servants that have tried to work with them, the most difficult individual to work with is one that is bitter, and there's bitterness that was consuming this woman.
Now, I do not know my audience that well. I'm not sure if I'm speaking to someone today, and deep down there is a root of bitterness, like the Hebrew epistle says, springing up and so on. So, it's interesting we're here, but after these things.
There's only three books in your Bible that begin with the expression, now it came to pass. Two of them are Esther and Ruth. In other words, it's significantly telling you, read it through and find out what comes to pass.
What's the end of the story? Before I was in the Lord's work, I have to confess to you, I was not much of a book reader, and what I would read was the beginning of the book, try to pick up a couple of things in the end, read the end of the book, and hopefully pass the test or scrape a pass off the wall.
Fortunately, that's the way I went through school, but I have learned the hard way the importance of reading detail. But, the book of Ruth, like I say, is a book about Nehomai. The book of Ruth begins with burials, and it ends, of course, with births.
Nehomai's story begins with bitterness, and it ends with blessedness. Bitterness does not have to reign. Bitterness does not have to stay with you. What happens in bitterness, what I have experienced, and I'm not saying that I couldn't be subject to the same thing.
After all, after a while, it becomes a thing of pride, and just nobody wants to bow, nobody wants to give in and admit, you know, I was just wrong in doing that. I admire men, particularly, that are big enough to go to their overseers, as we've been hearing, or whoever it might be, or a fellow servant and say, I'm wrong, I was wrong, I'm sorry, brother.
Takes a big man to do that, and it takes a woman of character and courage to do the same, and we're reading about that kind of a woman here in Nehomai. You know, you read the passage, and you feel sorry for her, don't you, really?
You think, you look, and you think, Elimelech, there's the weak link, but notice she will accept the responsibility of what went wrong. She says, I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me back, not back, brought me home empty.
I thought they were leaving because of a famine. Wasn't there plenty of food when they went down there to Moab? Couldn't she have brought some of that back? Invariably, and you know it as well as I do, when they leave us, brethren and sisters, and they come back, they're empty.
A man who has been away from the local assembly for 25 years, rose to the heights of real estate. If you went in the city, did you see his name plastered on the big billboards? The realty company got into a big circle of friends, and that led to drinking or whatever, and it stripped him of everything, everything.
If his wife wasn't teaching school, he'd have starved, and finally, slowly, he was making his way back. I often wondered if it would ever come to pass, and I think I was sharing this with one of the brethren the other day.
First Sunday, these broke bread, and he's the first to give out a hymn, gathered to thy name, Lord Jesus. I thought, that's a little quick. He wouldn't mind me telling you this. That's a little quick, you know.
First Sunday back, the first hymn, somebody asked him about it. You know what he said? I thought of that hymn every Sunday I was away. When the saints were breaking bread, I missed the breaking of bread.
He says, I can't tell you what a joy and delight it was to be back with fellow brethren and sisters that I had left, and now I'm coming back breaking bread. Worked his way back into, I mean, the man can sell.
He's a sharp businessman into the realty world. I don't think he cares. No more of the striving for the heights that he once soared amongst with the big players. There he is, brought back, empty, empty, but a happy man, a happy man.
I look at all this. I mean, it took a number on his health as well. He's not a very old man, but it took a number on him as it does, and it took a number on Naomi too. I mean, they weren't fooling when they said, Naomi, Naomi.
Think of David. David starts to describe to you that when he was away from God, how he felt inwardly. Did you ever think of what he looked like outwardly? Come on, we've seen people after a while, and you had to take a second look.
Is that them? Yeah. Whether it might've been a sickness that ravished their body or something else, there's a change that takes place, and there's a change that took place here as well. But having said that, here's what the land of Moab did, and it still does.
It stripped you, stripped her. When I could go through and show you your Bible, and you'd like to show me too, where Moab stripped everyone, but it stripped her first of all of her family, of her future, of her friends, and of her finances.
And now she has nothing left and nowhere to turn except one place. It's like the prodigal. It wasn't until he had come to a complete end of himself that he thought about his father, his father's house.
He doesn't rise up and say, I'm going home. He said, I'm going to the father. That was the way to going home, going to the father. She never forgot what it was like back there in Judah. But having said that, I want to think of four things that marked these moves of this couple that involved the losing of their family, losing of their children.
I want you to notice, first of all, imagination. Secondly, immaturity. Thirdly, immigration. And finally, the implication of it. What do I mean when I say imagination? There is nothing convincing any of us that there was this real famine in Judah.
There's nothing that's really convincing us that there's a famine in Judah. But Limelech imagined that there was a famine at least coming. And what his fear was is the fear of too many, that this famine could affect a lifestyle.
I don't want to leave. I don't want to lose. And I don't want to leave. Otherwise, life likely was good. And just the thought of the famine coming, the judges are ruling. Everybody's doing that which is right in his own eyes.
He's going to get a head start on it. He'll get out. And he'll get ahead of it. Back our way, it is a bit of a problem. I don't say it in an unkind way because they're very nice Christians. I love them dearly, especially up in Newfoundland and Labrador, where they've had to go west and earn the big money.
But with that big money come a lot of toys that weren't in their garage before when they left. And a lot of things happening. There's the cruises. There's different things. Now, when those various projects shut down, what am I going to do now?
Where am I going to go? I've got to have X number of dollars an hour. If I told you what some of them are making an hour, you want to know where can I get a job like that? You never mind. Just stay in Wisconsin, okay?
And they're looking for something that has got to be as good as what they left because they dread stepping down. Lots have done it. Lots have done it. Christians have. I said, it's not worth it. Not worth being separated from my family for that period of time.
They've weighed the balances, looked at both sides of the ledger and said, no, not going to move. God has blessed them for it. God has blessed them for it. They've still got their three meals a day and life is still good.
And it might not be. It's very easy to get caught in a whirlwind like that. Father's out working. Mom's out working. And then they come home, nothing gets his new pickup truck and everything. And I thought, wow, there we go again.
The children are being picked up by a nanny in the dark and brought home by mom after she gets off work. So here's this man, Illuminati, okay? He did not leave because of the facts of the famine, but the fear of the famine.
Let me ask you today, what are your fears? What really are your fears? Are your fears connected with that testimony and just what the future might be and what it might not be? Things that concern the things of God?
Are your fears about yourselves? Just what might happen in our lives? And our family just might not go like we'd like them to go. Lots haven't. What are really your fears? Here was a man marked, like I say, by imagination.
Just imagine it, okay? You know, his children followed him into the world, but they never followed him out. They followed him into Moab, but he buried them there. And he was buried there, rather. And then his sons were buried there.
And now what he is, after all these funerals, think of Naomi, she'd been through a lot. Now she's left with two daughter-in-laws, strangers. And her thinking was they'll never fit back. They'll never make it back in Judah.
They're going to survive, and this is the land of their nativity. They must stay here. Imagination. Imagination can play all kinds of games with any of us. We imagine certain things. But now we come to the next part of the message, okay?
Just thinking of imagination, I think of David. I'm not being hard on David. He says, I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul, there's nothing better for me than Saul. Better for me. And remember the language of Jacob.
Me have ye bereaved, he says, of my children. Joseph is not. Simeon is not. And will you take away Benjamin? Also, all these things are against me. Any time a verse in your life or my life begins and ends with me, we're in trouble.
And you go to a man even like Saul, a little bit the same way. But listen to what 2 Corinthians answers that. It's amazing how the Bible answers that. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse number 5. What's it say?
Casting down the imaginations. And Mr. Strong says that is reasoning with conceit. Imaginations. It's nice to have vision. There's a vast difference between vision and imaginations. Immaturity. So Naomi makes a valid point in verse number 13.
She said, if she had sons, would ye tarry till they are grown? You would tarry till they're mature? Because if they are immature boys that I'm giving to you for marriage, you'll never make it. That's why verse 13, I read it slowly, is a very important verse.
Would you wait till they are grown? She understood it was a very unfair thing. A very unfair matter to give to anybody a partner in life that's immature. And we've got them. We have them. Never grown up.
I know one young fella, his mother's still putting his socks on while he's in the bed at 14 years of age. I'd have yanked him out of that bed and stood him on his feet so quick he wouldn't know what hit him.
And she's in there pampering the guy putting his socks on at 14. I don't think there's any women here putting socks on husbands, are there? There's a thousand other ways you could deal with that. Immaturity.
That's the extreme side of it. We can be very immature when it comes to the things of God. And that was why Elimelech couldn't make it in Judah. He was marked by immaturity. And so it happens. Three things very quickly.
I mean, it's been said by others, I certainly am not the originator, we are young once, but we can be immature indefinitely. I mean, think of a man, immaturity because he couldn't have what he wanted.
That's Saul. Remember Saul? He says, there's none of you that feel sorry for me. And this, this, my son has made a league with David and so on. Immaturity because of what he wanted. When you come to Ahab, it's in immaturity because of what he wanted.
Just that, that field, that little vineyard wasn't his. And he goes to bed, he pouts and he sulks. He's got a wife that caters to that. And she was with him all the way. She didn't mind it. As you go to another man, a good man, Uzziah.
And again, it's immaturity because of he couldn't do what he wanted. Is that how I am today? Is that how you are today? Brethren, I just read that last week, when David said to his son, said to his son Solomon, show thyself a man.
What kind of a man would that be? What kind of a man would David want in his son? I think I can tell you a few things. He'd want in his son a man that loved God. He'd want in his son one that would worship God.
That's what he would want in him. So Naomi very skillfully kind of skirts the issue at that time about these daughter-in-laws, trying to convince them to stay. They said, no, no, no, it doesn't matter.
I read that. That's why I read the whole of the chapter. Naomi, Orpah, she will kiss her. She will leave. She'll go back. Not Ruth. Ruth says, I'm a lifer, a lifer. I like people that come into the assembly of God and they are lifers.
They're there for life. Yep. They take the blows. They get hit. They get treated unfairly at times, but onward they plot. Why? Because you know what took I'll just slow this up a little bit. You know what took Elimelech where he went?
He got his eyes off of a man that could meet his need. Do you know what brought Naomi was going to bring Ruth back? She got her eyes on a man that could meet her need. Boaz. Now I know I'm not saying much about Boaz and Ruth in this, because my subject mainly is this woman Naomi.
So like I say there was immaturity. There was imagination, immaturity. Now there is immigration. The world doesn't accept tourists. No, no. The tourist business is likely the biggest business in this country and our country too.
But the reason our country, your country goes after tourists, they want you to become settlers. We have a lady and her husband coming to meetings not steadily. They own a dry cleaning business. They are Chinese people and she was a teacher of English, teacher in China, just coming to my mind now.
And when they were going through the maritimes, she got real thirsty. Her and her friends traveling, she said, let's just go into this town called Sussex. I need a drink of water, whatever. They went in and she said, if I ever immigrate to Canada, it's just a tourist.
This is where I want to live. That's where her and her husband live. That's the business of tourism. So the world doesn't expect tourism any more than it did with the prodigal. Wanted him to become a settler.
He joined himself to a citizen of that country. He became part of the country. That's exactly what has happened here. Like I say, it led to immigration. You know, if you were to talk to Imelop Elimelech about the famine, he'd had his excuses.
Oh, he could go on and tell you all the reasons. He said, listen, he had them there. Come on, you visit people that they're going to leave or whatever. And some of them could have a seed of truth in them.
But notice when judgment falls. Now, listen, brethren, let's get this. When judgment falls, it fell on the head of the home. It fell on Elimelech first. He was responsible. Whatever kind of influence was coming either way from Naomi, it would fall on him.
And the result of that, of course, is implication. It had affected heathen families, brought sorrow into their lives unnecessarily. Because of a man, a believer, if I could call him that, that was away from God.
It's sad when that happens, when those that are away from the Lord and they bring sorrow into the lives of others. I'm thinking of a family just now, a brother just now, and that's just exactly what has happened.
What he has done is so affected, not just his family, but like this here, it has affected others. It's like Jonah. Jonah gets away from the Lord and affects others. It's like Abraham, we've been hearing about, gets away from the path and you affect others.
Isaac the same way. But first for Naomi, it was what she thought. What she thought. She had lost her first love, then she lost her first boy, and then she lost her last boy. She likely would have said, this is me finished.
But God was only starting. Dear child of God today, regardless of the things that are past, after these things, let me tell you, there's a future because we read at the beginning of this book and the three books in the Bible, it came to pass in the days after these things.
So let it be that in your future. So firstly, it was what she thought. Secondly, is what she sought. She sought the welfare of a stranger. Naomi, I like what, just in case I miss it, she says here that she's too old to have a husband and so on.
But listen, she would think like any woman, when she saw a boy, she could have easily just kind of nudged Ruth said, hey dear, it's about the age thing. If you don't mind, I'll take, I'll take things from here.
I'm really more his age than you are. Not at all. Not a bone of jealousy in her body. She wanted the best for somebody else. I mean, it would look natural. It would look normal, but she steps aside for the sake of Ruth and a future that God had for her and ultimately for Naomi as well.
So it was first what she thought, what she sought, what she taught. You know what she taught Ruth? She taught her the wonders of Boaz. I mean, this woman knew nothing about a kinsman redeemer. Naomi is a picture, of course, as we know of the nation and her recovery and so on.
But she taught her, she actually taught her the wonders of this man Boaz. How he fed her, about the field, where she would find him, what her future would be. So there was what she thought, what she sought, what she taught, and what she brought.
Blessing, blessing into lives that were once bereaved. Because I love how the chapter concludes, the book rather concludes, the child is born. Notice, there's no fruit from those early unions. No fruit from those marriages that took place in a land where they should never have been.
No fruit in their lives. But come back to where she should be. There's all kinds of fruit. Who would have ever thought that this woman, that Ruth, would be in the genealogy, one of the four in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus.
And now, the child that is born in the home is actually attributed to her as the mother. Now there's a lot more. I'm sorry it's four o 'clock. If I was to put it all together, I would just say this. Read it sometime.
It's the sweetest, one of the sweetest books in our Bible. Doesn't take a long to read. But read it for the sake of yourself, of course, but Naomi. Don't miss Naomi. If you miss Naomi in this book, you've missed a central figure in the book of Ruth.
It's about recovery and restoration. You know what the best, brothers and sisters, let's be honest, we're a bunch of restored backsliders. There isn't anybody here today that sometime in their life wasn't going in the wrong direction.
So may the Lord preserve us for his name's sake.