Ruth 1:14-18 "Where You Go, I Will Go"

Praise to the Sovereign King

Just thank you so much to be able to have the opportunity to sing worship to you, Lord. To come together as a church, as fellow believers, Lord. And God, I just pray for all of us here today, God. Lord, I just pray that you would help us grow in knowing you, Lord.

That you would draw us closer and closer to your cross and that we would know you better as crucified, Lord. That when we look to you, we would see you taking our punishment, God. And we'd also see your love and recognize your mercy in those things, God.

And Lord, I just pray that you would bless this church in a way that, God, we are unknowing of, Lord. I just pray that you would help us be able to go out into the world and tell them about this great God that we have and that there is a place that worships you here in Hagerman, Lord.

God, I just pray for gospel conversations amongst ourselves as fellow believers and also amongst the world as well, with our neighbors, our friends, and our family. And Lord, I just pray that each one of us in our different ministry means, God, that we would be doing things for your glory.

And for your praise.

And that our heart would always be centered upon you, Lord. God, let us say the same thing that Ruth says here in this text. Where you go, I will go, Lord. And you walk the hill of Calvary for us. So, Lord, let us not hate the reproach of men, but let us look forward to those things to demonstrate your glory in this.

And so, Lord, we just say these things in your holy name. Jesus Christ, amen.

So, for today, like I said,.

We're gonna be in verses 14 through 18. And I just wanna read just kind of what we ran over last week, starting in verse eight through 13. And so, let us start in verse eight, just as a little bit of a reminder of the context of what's going on in here.

So, eight through 13 says this. And Naomi said to her two daughter-in-laws, go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord, Yahweh, deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

May the Yahweh, the Lord, grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, no, but we will surely return with you to your people.

But Naomi said, return my daughters. Why should you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Return my daughters, go, for I am too old. I have a husband to have a husband.

I'm too old to have a husband.

If I said I have hope,.

If I should even have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is harder for me than for you.

For the hand of the Yahweh, the Lord, has gone forth against me. Let us read over the text for the day. Verses 14 through 18. And they both, all these individuals here that we see in this text, which is a reminder, it's Naomi, Ruth, and Orpha.

Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpha kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. Then she said, behold, your sister-in-law has gone back.

To her.

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 to 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, I want to say that again, thus says the Yahweh, thus the Yahweh do to me and worse, if anything, but death parts you and me.

When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. Let us pray over this text again. Lord God, I thank you so much for the words that have been penned here in your inspired word, God.

Lord, I pray that we would be encouraged today to walk with brothers and sisters in Christ in deep, meaningful fellowship and that our walk, our path, our direction of flow, where we would be going, Lord, would just be continually towards you, knowing you, loving you, caring for you.

For you are our God, you are my God. So Lord, I pray today that we would know you better from these things and even in these four or five verses in here, Lord. So God, I just say these things according to your will as that is what we want done for this evening, this morning.

We know that it will be done. And we say this in your name, Jesus the Christ, amen. So just as a little bit more of a reminder, I know we just read from verses eight to 13, but just to remind us of what's going on in here, this is really in these short amount of verses from verses one through 13, it has set up for us this terrible season of grief.

As a reminder, Naomi and her husband and her two sons have left the promised land in a time of famine and a time of what it would appear as God giving judgment to the ethnic Jew for disobeying him. And so they have disbanded, they have departed from their homeland, their friends, their families in those ways.

And they have gone to seek food,.

Social, economical status in another country, the Moabite land, Moab. And so they have done this and they've even foregone being these ethnic Jews in the promised land to seek what would be called these sojourners, these foreigners, these aliens in another land seen as less in rights and social atmosphere.

They have foregone what they used to have to go after these things. And they have been there for some time. And then we see that her two sons, Naomi's two sons have died after being married to non-ethnic Israelites.

And so it would appear that this family has gone far away from what God has called them to do. God has made it very explicitly clear not to marry unbelievers, or in this case, in this situation, to not marry outside of the covenant faith, outside of the covenant people.

They have done this. And we also see that both Orpha and Ruth have up until this point and don't know who their God is, who the one and only God is. They've gone after foreign gods. And so we would see that this family being mixed now with these other families have not influenced these other families.

And this is important to remember as when we look through this text, we must be reminded that the purpose of Israel, according to plenty of texts in Isaiah 42, verse six, is that they were to be a light unto the nations.

And here they aren't telling their own family members, their own wives of their own God. And so we see this season of grief, this season of sin, this season of going away from God as a family. But Naomi's husband has died.

Her two sons have died. We must remember these things. They have departed from their land. And there's just this, what seems to be chaos amongst their life. In verse 14, it says this. And this is after we see that the two daughter-in-laws have already mourned with Naomi.

They've already attempted to go with Naomi. And Naomi's being kind of stubborn in this way, it says. And they lifted up their voices and wept again. Church, this is a family atmosphere that we see in here.

This mother-in-law and her two daughter-in-laws, they're coming together and weeping amongst each other. They love each other. They've been with each other. They're family in this way. They care for each other.

Orpha in this text gets a bad rap by many, many people because she didn't follow Naomi to the promised land. But I want you to be reminded that how many times has Naomi said, go back?

Go back, there's better hope there.

They both love their mother-in-law. This is not an easy decision to leave everything that you have currently to follow this woman to a land where you're gonna be the foreigners. You're gonna be the sojourners.

That's not an easy decision. And so we see this family weeping and mourning together. In this culture, it would be, it doesn't say in here, but the typical way of mourning these kind of losses in this kind of day would be with sackcloth and ash.

They would be out in the streets with sackcloth over their head, this uncomfortable wear to show the world that this is a time of badness for them. Sadness, despair, and they'd be throwing ashes on their head in this public display of mourning.

And this would be a common way that the Israelites and the people in this land would be mourning over loss. And so church, I wanna be encouraging you that we can see in here that both Ruth and Orpha understand to mourn with someone that is mourning.

They are themselves mourning and they're coming together in this way. I want you to be encouraged with thinking as a church and my brother and sister walks through the door and they have lost something.

They've gone through something. Something has befallen them. Do I come along with them? Do I cling unto them? Do I kiss them? Do I mourn with them? Because if you don't today, you need to. That's part of being a church.

That's part of being part of the family. The adopted family of God is caring for your brothers, your sisters, your mothers, your fathers, your daughter-in-laws in this way as being a family of God is caring with each other.

So we see that Orpha and Ruth are doing this with Naomi and Orpha kisses her. This would be the going away kiss. She's saying, okay, I'm heeding your word of advice.

You are right.

I have no future hope following you. It's going to be hard where I go. I'm gonna go back to my husband's house. I'm gonna find comfort there. I might be remarried. I might be blessed with a child. This is Orpha doing these things.

And as a reminder, Orpha, the Moab land has foreign gods and idols. And I want you to remember this. Orpha is going back to a land of sin and desolation in this way. And it says in here that Ruth clung unto her.

And we're gonna see an exclamation, a proclamation of what I would say looks and appears as a proclamation of faith here in a moment from Ruth. But we see Ruth in here disobeying her mother-in-law's advice and holding onto her, loving her family, caring for her.

She knows as Ruth that it's hard to lose a husband because she just lost hers. And she also knows and sees her mother-in-law that realizes that she lost her husband and she lost her son. The friendship of Ruth in this text is quite remarkable.

It's quite amazing. I want you to think in the back of your mind how many funerals you've been to, how many types of different family atmospheres that you have seen in the mourning that goes on in those households.

Everybody mourns differently. And especially in a cultural context, everyone mourns differently. We have different ethnic groups today that are very verbal in their mourning. We have some that are very silent in their mourning.

But we see that this is a very verbally mourning openly and loudly with each other kind of culture in here. And even in the midst of these things, in the midst of Ruth's mourning, she still loves her mother-in-law enough to know that she should cling to her and follow her to care for her mother-in-law in this way.

Now I pay close attention to the two daughter-in-laws in this kind of a text, both Orpha and Ruth, because we have to remember that they're both part of the Moab land. They're both following pagan gods in this way.

Remember this. They're non-believers. They are non-believers. And in verse 15, it says this. Then she said, "'Behold, your sister-in-law.'".

This is Naomi.

"'Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people "'and her gods. "'Return after your sister-in-law.'". Church never do this. Could you imagine being a Christian and professing faith in Yahweh and Jesus Christ, the one that purchased you on the cross, and you see somebody before you that has lost their husband and that wants to follow you and know you are God, and you're telling them, go back and worship your false gods.

Don't be a part of me. Don't come to my church. Don't know my God. Go back and keep on worshiping your false idols. Why do I say never do this? Why do I say never do what Naomi has just done in this text?

I wanna read from Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. And this needs to be a reminder for each and every one of us today, church.

If you truly have come to the throne of God, you have truly known who he is. You have seen your sin pierced and staying upon the cross as the body of Christ is taken off of there, and your sin has been paid for in full.

You know this to the inner depth of your core. You have faith and trust in Christ, and you know the hope that is there and the peace it is with knowing him crucified in these ways, and you've been saved by the gospel.

Verses 28 through 30, it says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you shall find rest in your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my load is light. If you see your sin upon the cross and you know who Christ is, you have rest and you know that rest. How evil and wrong is it for us to not tell the world that is heavy laden and burdened of where rest is.

That is wrong to do, even in the time of awkward conversations, even in the time that we look at a non-believer and they have lost their husband. That is hard to do. It is hard to tell those kind of people about who Christ is, but if you know who he is and you know what rest is, that is the only right thing to do.

Is losing a husband, a wife, a child, a mother or a father, is that a heavy laden burden? A difficult thing to suffer?

Yes, it is.

But we know where our rest is at. We know who takes the burden for us. We know where those things are at. We know where those things are found. We as a church ought to tell the unconverted, the unknowing, the idol worshipers, the pagan followers of where rest is, even in the awkward situations.

Let's go back now to Ruth. And think about this just for a moment. Naomi is a part of this covenant faith, physical ethnic Jew who has to some knowledge of Yahweh. She knows what Yahweh has done for her people.

She knows all these things. She knows the same God that saves you and I today. And she encourages Orpha and Ruth, don't come to know my God. Go back to your false gods. This is not right. Do not do this, church.

That's evil.

That's wrong.

That's sinful.

If you've done this today, and I have done this kind of thing, and I hate and kick myself for it every single day when I think about this. If you have somebody that you know that you've done this to, repent.

Go run back to their land. Go run back to their house and tell them of where rest is at. Do this. That's the only right thing to do. It says that then she said, behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods.

Return after your sister-in-law. Naomi comes from a time in the promised land where God's judgment has befallen it. Is it possible that the reason that the judgment has come upon this land is because it was producing these kind of people that weren't telling people where there's ultimate rest, that wasn't telling people of what their God has done?

It might be possible. Especially since in this time of mourning, Naomi's quick to tell her daughter-in-law's the ones that she supposedly loves in this way to go back to her God and gods. Says in verse 16.

Now, this is remarkable. Before we read verse 16, I want you to think for one moment, if you've ever made a decision in your own life that was one where you were moving, you were changing your career, you had a very, very, very difficult decision before you.

How long did it take you to make this decision? I don't know about you guys, but my wife and I have to battle these kind of things out for a long time before we say, yup, this is what we're gonna do. Or no, we're gonna actually stay doing this.

It's something that we don't make in a rash, quick decision. It's usually one that's done with patience and thinking and considering in this kind of a text. Why is that the case? Because if we were to move today to another country or to another state, another city, and we lost our job, what does that involve for us?

It means that we're foregoing our friends, our economic social status that we have in the community or wherever we're at, whatever we're in. It means that we're going to be now rebuilding roots in another place.

This is difficult stuff. Looking for a new job, whatever it is, this is something that is drastic and crazy to go through to be able to drop your former life to go after another. That is a difficult thing to do.

Church, I hope that each one of us in this room have done this. And we're gonna read what I mean here in just a moment. I wanna read verse 16 and then we'll go back to Matthew to read over something here in just a moment.

But let's read here in 16. It says, but Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you.

This is Ruth.

This is Ruth that is not a child of Israel, is not an ethnic Jew. Do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from you,.

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. This is remarkable. This is amazing. This is a pagan woman that has just said, no,.

I will follow your God.

We'll see here in a moment, she even invokes the word Yahweh. Why I say that each one of us, I hope each one of us have made this kind of a difficult decision in our life is in Matthew chapter 10. Let's read here in Matthew chapter 10.

I should have told you to keep a finger in Matthew.

Because it's just a page before where we were just at. Matthew chapter 10, verses 32 through 37. Matthew chapter 10, verse 32 through 37. It says in here, everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my father who is in heaven.

We have a great mediator between us and God, our Lord and Jesus Christ. Verse 33 says this, but whoever shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth.

Do not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man's enemies will be the enemies, will be the members of his own household.

He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves sons or daughters more than me is not worthy of me. I hope that in us knowing who Christ is, we see this division that has taken place in our own lives.

I hope that you see your value in what you do in every way that you act every single day that it is meant for the glory of God and his purpose, his praise, his worship. I this week was listening to a wonderful song and it's one that we don't have in our hymnals.

It's called, I Have Decided to Follow Christ. And it's a song that many people think means that I today have chosen to have faith in Christ. That's not what the song means. It was verbalized by a man who was a convert in India and him and his whole family came to know who Jesus Christ was and the whole land, his tribe where he was at, his community sought to put him to death.

And so when he was before the sword, before he was before the death blow, they said, renounce Christ and you will live. And he said, no, I've decided to follow Christ and there is no turning back. And the sword came down, he died.

And so did his whole family. And because of that, many, many, many people in India came to know who Jesus Christ was. Church, when you come to know who Christ is and you have decided to follow Christ,.

Wherever you go, wherever you walk,.

There is no turning back. And there is a division, there is a sword. If you don't see the sword in your life today, you don't know Christ. There is a division there where the world hates you. And that means even members in your own household, if they don't know who Christ is.

When we see in this text in Ruth, verse 16, 1 -16, she is giving it all away. Any sort of chance of going back to her husband, to her husband's house and finding hope and comfort there, being with friends and family, finding a new husband in her native land, she's giving up.

There is no turning back. Your God will be my God. Your people will be my people. Your land will be my land. That's wonderful. I hope each one of us in here have seen this in our own lives. Now let's look in here.

And we'll see this over and over and over again here throughout the book of Ruth, especially in the end of it. Verse 17, it says, where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried. Thus made the Yahweh.

This is Ruth, a pagan God worshiper. May the Yahweh, may the Lord do to me. And just as a reminder, this word Yahweh, that's the very name Christ proclaims. May the word, may Jesus deal with me. May the Yahweh do to me.

And worse, if anything but death parts you and me. This is after, this is following what Naomi's words were about Yahweh. That she, Naomi recognizes what she has gone through has been judgment from God, has been his hand coming against her.

And now this is Ruth saying,.

After hearing that statement of Naomi, this is Ruth saying, if he has worse to do to me, that's okay. Where you die, I die. She recognizes Yahweh's sovereignty in this text even. His right to do with his creation.

She recognizes this. May your God be my God. May your people be my people.

Where you go, I will go.

Where you die, I die. Where you lay, I lay. This is wonderful. This is what I would say appears to be a Christian type of attribute that I hope each one of us have. We see a suffering family member and that might be in our own household or that might be within this church.

We see somebody suffering. Church, do not kiss and go away from them. Do not tell them to go and worship false gods. Come and cling unto them. Help them, love them, care for them.

Serve them.

For where you go, I will go.

Where you die, I will die. I love you. That's what we ought to be saying as Christians and followers of the same Yahweh that Ruth is following in this text. And it says in here in verse 18, when she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

This is Naomi essentially saying, okay, I give up.

You can follow me.

Come with me to my land. Come with me to my people. Yeah, I'm not gonna try to push you away anymore because I can see that you are bound and determined to love me, to cling unto me, to follow me in this way.

I think this is a reason that why so many women come and study the book of Ruth. And I think it's a shame that not more churches go to the book of Ruth. There's not a lot of people that go and study the book of Ruth.

Ruth is a beautiful story. And we see attributes that we ought to apply.

To our own life.

We see a God that is faithful to his own people. We see so many things in this text. And this is one reason I am so excited to be going through this kind of a text with us because it is wonderful. I hope it's encouraging as a woman to be reading about another faithful woman in this way.

And I hope that as men in this church, we can see a disciple of Yahweh and rationalize these things in this way and mimic a follower of God. Let's cling unto each other. Let's love each other. Let's fellowship with each other.

Let's care for each other. Let's not forsake each other. When we come to this church and we say, I will be praying for you or what's going on, we cannot be doing this in a superficial way. That's not church.

That's not fellowship.

That's meaningless.

It's not right. Let us worship God by doing these kinds of things. I wanna lead out by reading just one more text here. There's actually a couple of places I was planning on reading today.

But let's just go to,.

Well, maybe we'll read both of these very quickly. Let's go first to Romans chapter two, verse 25 through 29. Romans chapter two, verse 25 through 29. This is in the New Testament. Romans chapter two, verse 25 through 29.

This would be the application that I think at the end of the book of Ruth, we're gonna be reading this kind of a text several times. Romans chapter two, verse 25 through 29. Romans chapter two, verse 25 through 29.

It says, for indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the law. But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision, that which you have already done, that which you've already obeyed, that which you've already followed, becomes uncircumcision.

Are we all violators of the law?

Yes.

Are all the Jews in the Old Testament violators of the law, whether it be the moral, ceremonial, any of the judicial law, they are all violators of that. All their circumcision became uncircumcision in this way.

It says, if therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the law, will not the uncircumcised be regarded as circumcision? And will not he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the law, will not judge you who have through having the letter of the law and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. And I want to say that again. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. Neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly.

And circumcision is that which is of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter. And his praise is not from men, but from God. Now think about what we just read about in Ruth. We have a Moab woman that is not a child of Israel, is not an ethnic Jew.

And here she has just said, your God is my God. Your people, my people. Where you go, the land you go to will be my place.

I will go with you there.

It would sound and appear like to me that she has been circumcised of the heart. She has been born again. She professes faith in the almighty God. And she is not a Jew outwardly, but she is a Jew inwardly.

I want to read for one more text in Job chapter one. And I hope that this is, whatever we're going through today, whether it be difficult, whether it be easy, if you're heavy laden today, burdened today, over stricken with grief and hardship, Ruth is often called by many scholars, the female version of Job.

The female version of Job. And I think it's quite obvious why we see that in this kind of a text. Job one, verses 20 through 22. It says, this is after Job has lost great things, huge things, family.

It says,.

Speaking of different ways to mourn. He tore his robe in this grief and shaved his head and he fell to the ground and worshiped.

And he said,.

Through all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God. Let us be reminded by Ruth's own words. May Yahweh deal with me. And even if he does worse, so be it, I'm going to follow you, Naomi. Your God's going to be my God.

What a wonderful text.

Let us go ahead and pray over this. And let us be considering in our minds, and I would encourage you as you're listening to this prayer offer, that you would also be praying about how you can love your brothers and sisters in Christ better today.

So let us pray. Lord God, I just thank you so much for this morning, this Lord's Day, to worship you, to remember your death, your burial, and to celebrate your resurrection, Lord. God, even in this text that is written 1 ,000 years before your incarnation, God, I see you crucified in it.

I see your goodness in it. I see your love in it. I see your people in it, God. And Lord, I see that which we fail at, Lord. God, I just pray that each one of us would obey better today that which you told us to do.

Love God and love our neighbor, Lord. God, let us love one another and let us see that our neighbors that are the closest to us are that that are in our household and that which is in our own body, the church, Lord.

And let us love each other in these ways. Let us fellowship with each other in these ways. Let us walk with each other in these ways. Let us cling unto each other, Lord, just as you have ransomed us. Lord, let us love one another and share the gospel and love our unconverted neighbors as well, Lord.

Let us go and tell them, do not go away. Do not go back to your gods. Do not go unto the pagan land, but come unto Christ. Come unto the Calvary hill. Come unto seeing that which saves, Lord. Let us remember this and let us confess this amongst men.

Lord God, for you have told us, for those that confess you before men, we will be confessed to the Father. By our Lord and Jesus, our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ in whose name we pray, amen. Brothers and sisters, would you please stand with us, each other in great fellowship, cling unto one another, and let us sing this final song in praise to our mighty God that has saved us.