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*“Blinded By Bitterness”*
Have you had a difficult time making sense of difficult circumstances?
What are your responses to them?
Have you shown complete trust in God and his purposes?
Or do you find yourself complaining, questioning, and expressing bitterness to your plight in life?
In fact, with all of life’s circumstances, we are continually presented with opportunities to respond in either godly responses or sinful responses.
In our Leadership Team meetings, we are exploring a biblical approach to these very issues.
We are aware that we have very little control over circumstances that come in the forms of people and events.
In all actuality, God is using these very things in order to mold us into his image.
This is his plan.
We see this in our current memory portion in the Book of James.
We are to count our trials as joys because our faith is being tested.
And this test will result in our spiritual maturity – with the right responses, that is.
We are exhorted to call on God for his wisdom so that we can discern such things.
And when we respond negatively to trials, we determine that we are serving our sinful desires and not God.
This is the truth that we need to get ingrained in our minds.
If we can get to the point where we can interpret all events in life as opportunities to grow in our faith, we will be better prepared and able to respond biblically.
The other key is to know what a biblical response involves.
In the end, we need to know the Bible and ask God for the wisdom to discern our circumstances.
And then we need to respond accordingly.
All throughout God’s Word, we see this unfold.
You’ll remember that I introduced a couple of passages that speak of people and nations serving as examples for us to learn from – both good and bad.
The Book of Ruth is certainly no different.
In our opening few verses that we looked at last week, we were presented with the setting of the story.
We are quickly brought up to speed on period of about 10 years in the life of Elimelech and Naomi and their family.
We learned from last week that our story takes place in the times of the judges in Israel.
This was not a very good time for the nation.
These times where characterized by sinful rebellion against God.
As a result, the Lord God brought a famine in the land with the goal of bringing his people to repentance.
This did not happen immediately.
In fact, there was a man from Bethlehem who acted on his own accord.
The Bible says repeatedly that the people “did what was right in their own eyes.”
We considered last week that Elimelech should have repented and influenced his family and town to repent also.
But instead of following God’s plan, he took his family out of the land of Israel and into the land of their enemies – the land of Moab.
Elimelech’s wife was Naomi and they had two sons – Mahlon and Chilion.
While in the land of Moab, they made more inadvisable choices by marrying foreign women.
Throughout their history, Israel was warned by God not to do so because this would cause the people to embrace the heathen gods and fall into rebellion.
Perhaps as punishment from God, Elimelech dies.
And yet Naomi and children remained in Moab another 10 years.
Next, her sons die and Naomi is left with nothing but her daughters-in-law in a foreign land.
The curtain closes and we are left to contemplate what we would do if we were in her circumstances.
This morning, we will observe several choices made by three characters – Naomi, Ruth and Orpah.
We will look at this text in six brief points.
The first is *Response.
*The character that stands out the most to me in this section is Naomi.
If you’re familiar with this story, or if you’ve read the book in anticipation of the study, you would likely have tried to interpret Naomi’s attitude in this.
Am I right?
It’s a bit tough trying to figure her out.
Were her actions and attitude appropriate or not?
After looking at it a fair bit, I am going to suggest that “yes” her actions and attitudes were a bit of both.
There is an interesting dynamic taking place – mostly between Naomi and Ruth as we will see.
In verse 6, we see that Naomi responded.
She did not simply give up.
She arose with her daughters-in-law to return to Israel.
And we are also given the reason why she does so.
It says that Naomi had heard (while in the fields of Moab) that the Lord had visited his people.
In this context, for God to “visit” his people would have been the idea of “intervening on behalf of” Israel.
We can’t be sure if there was any recognized repentance in the land.
Nonetheless, God acts mercifully on his people and provides for them once again.
One thing that I neglected to point last week was the irony that the town of Bethlehem literally means “house of bread.”
Famine had come to the “house of bread” and would seem here that it was being restocked.
And in addition to God’s mercy, we see his sovereignty on display as these historical events must be carried out so that his plans will be fulfilled in these characters.
If we were to take a peek at the ending, we would discover that the great King David would emerge from the line of Ruth and Boaz.
Therefore, it was necessary that these folks return to the land.
And in God’s sovereign plan, it was determined that Naomi would hear of God’s mercy and provision in the fields of Moab.
In verse 7, Naomi’s response was to set out.
And her daughters-in-law joined her.
The narrator obviously views the events through the eyes of Naomi when he indicates that she would “return” to the land of Judah.
Of course, neither Ruth nor Orpah had come from there originally.
Somewhere along the way, Naomi has a change of heart.
Our second point is *Requests.*
In verse 8, Naomi turns to these women and requests that they return to their mother’s houses.
In a sense, she is using “tough love” with these women.
She combines firmness and tenderness in this request.
This is a significant and specific indication here.
It was usually the father’s house that was referred to in these times.
With the mention of mother’s house, Naomi is specifically thinking of future marriage for these women.
Whereas the reference to a father’s house would provide the image of protection, a reference to mother’s house would signify an environment of preparations for love and marriage.
This was Naomi’s way of encouraging these women to begin a new life and a new family.
And then Naomi adds a prayer of blessing to these women.
Perhaps this is a sign of faith.
She acknowledges that God deals kindly with people.
And in verse 9, she acknowledges that it is the LORD that provides rest and stability.
She asks that God would act on his covenant love (or “hesed”).
It invokes the positive attributes of God: love, faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness and loyalty.
It is God’s love that goes beyond the requirements of duty.
She kisses them and tries to send them on their way.
And she is met with *Rebuttal.
*They respond with, “No, we’re going with you.”
It is interesting that after all that these women have gone through together, these young women are more attached to her than their own people.
Despite their affection, Naomi responds in verse 11.
And she attempts to provide them with a realistic scenario.
And in verses 11-13, she tells them to go back and says something to the effect of “why are you going to hang around with me?
Do you really think that I am going to get pregnant and provide you with more husbands?? Get real.
You’re being foolish.
I’m too old.
And even if not, are you really going to wait around and restrain yourselves until they’re old enough for you?
You know that this isn’t realistic.
I appreciate your commitment.
But you have to know that your chances are better with your own people than with me.”
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