In Paul Carrington's sermon, 'Returning Home to Bethlehem,' the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah from the Book of Ruth is explored to convey themes of redemption, faith, and divine providence. Naomi, driven by famine and personal loss, decides to return to Bethlehem from Moab after hearing of God's renewed blessings on her homeland. Her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, initially express their desire to accompany her, but Naomi urges them to return to their own families. Orpah eventually chooses to turn back, illustrating the allure of worldly security. In contrast, Ruth makes a profound commitment to Naomi and to God, embodying the cost of true discipleship and conversion. Ruth's declaration, 'Your people shall be my people, and your God my God,' signifies a covenantal shift and foreshadows her integral role in the lineage of Jesus Christ. The sermon underscores that even amidst personal despair and societal moral decay, God's plan for redemption persists. Through Ruth's story, the sermon highlights how God brings beauty from ashes and calls individuals to a deeper faith and commitment.

The word of the Lord here in Ruth, chapter one, the whole chapter. 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 dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Alimilech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the name of his two sons were Malon and Kilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Al-Lumalak, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left, and her two sons.

Now they took wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other, Ruth. And they dwelt there about 10 years. Then both Malon and Kilion also died, so the woman survived her two sons and her husband. Then She arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab.

For she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people by bringing them bread. Therefore, she went out from the place where she was and her two daughters-in-law with her. And they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, return each to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

The Lord grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband." So she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept and they said to her, surely we will return with you and your people." But Naomi said, turn back my daughters, why will you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Turn back my daughters, go for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons would you wait for them till they were grown? Would you restrain yourselves from having husbands?

No my daughters for it grieves me very much for your sakes That the hand of the Lord has gone out against me Then they lifted up their voices and wept again and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law but Ruth clung to her and she said, look your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever 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. The Lord do so to me and more also of anything but Death parts you and me." When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her. Now the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem. And it happened when they had come to Bethlehem that all the city was excited because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi?

But 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 and the Lord has brought me home again empty Why do you call me Naomi since the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me? So Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. Now they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

Oh Lord, we come before you here to be instructed and helped by your word, oh Lord. We pray that you would be exalted and glorified. Lord, we pray that you alone would occupy our hearts as we hear your word this morning. And Father, even as we look at these two women, both Orpah and Ruth, I pray, oh Lord, that you would fasten upon our hearts these two paths, these two destinies that you have laid before us today, and Lord, that you would do a work in the hearts of every single one of us here to help us to see The glories that belong to you, that are ours in Christ Jesus, on the one side and the terrors of choosing this world and going the way of following our own hearts and our own desires. Oh Lord, I pray that you would help us today to see.

And Lord that you would do a work in each of our hearts Lord that you would redeem and save according to your great power. Help us Lord we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well please be seated.

You remember that when we when we met this book, this little book of Ruth, the last time we tried to really kind of set up the context and understand what God was trying to convey. Really it's a little book. It's only 85 verses, four chapters, but it's a book that carries eternal weight, doesn't it? It's a book that is really rooted in God's overarching plan for the redemption, for the salvation of His people. And one of The reasons for that is that this book actually has the genealogy or the family tree of Jesus Christ highlighted.

And the roots of that tree actually find themselves going through this little book of Ruth. And so when you flip to the first chapter in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 1 verse 5, we read these words in the line of Christ's genealogy, that Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David. And of course we know that David would become the great king that would only be a shadow of the greater King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was going to come a thousand years later.

And so what was Christ's mission? What was the thing that brought Christ from heaven to earth? It's also captured in the book of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 21, when Joseph is receiving those instructions from the angel and the angel says and you shall call his name Jesus why because he will save his people from their sins that's really that what the name Jesus represents and what it really means. And so the whole mission of Christ is to reverse the terrible state of man that man has plunged himself into. And so we see that today that God's will will not be thwarted Even in the time of the judges, a time of bleak darkness, of moral decay, the Lord is still working in the midst of this to unfold His plan.

And I think what we can learn from this is that as we look at this book, that We see God who specializes not only turning around some of the worst people Turning around some of the most hopeless people but a God who takes the most hopeless and some of the worst circumstances And then he turns them around for his great glory and for his honor. We see that God is able to get beauty from ashes. He can build palaces out of the rubble of our lives. This is the God that we serve. And so In Ruth, we see that God, against all hope, is going to do something spectacular to bring about the redemption of all of mankind.

And just to recap where we left off in verses 1 to 5, we're not going to get too much into that, we dealt with that the last time, But verses 1 to 5 tell of this fateful decision that a man by the name of a limelight made to take his family from Bethlehem and Bethlehem Means the house of bread. That's what Bethlehem actually means. It was ten years earlier and he took his family to this place called Moab. God had set his people in the covenant land and he had surrounded them with covenant promises. He had blessed them in so many different ways, but the people of God had not really reciprocated.

And that's what the entire book of judges is about. The rebellion of man time and time and time again. These sin cycles. And as a result, every time these people would sin, the peace of the land would be disturbed, Either through an invading force or through some sort of physical calamity and in this case There was a drought in the land famine had struck and so what a limelight decided to do was to design his own solution to somehow Make his life easier and to somehow feed his family and so on. And so they left the house of bread seeking fullness.

They went to another land. They were looking for earthly security. They wanted to escape the famine that was upon them. But always remember this as we're going through Ruth, it was the time of the judges and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's how the book of judges actually ends.

Somehow they reason that the covenant blessings could be enjoyed outside of the covenant land and of course that was a completely false understanding And they didn't just depart, they didn't just go away from the house of bread, but they left the house of bread and went to a place called Moab. And Moab is a God-forsaken place. It was a place of pagan worship, idol worship, even child sacrifice to the God, Malik. Everything you could think of, it was the opposite of God. And so this woman, Naomi, loses her husband.

And then she loses her two sons, and she gets to the point of almost near total despair all her hopes have been dashed and her worst fears have been realized she's now unprotected uncared for in this land of Moab and we asked the question what if the Book of Ruth ended in verse 5? What if the account of Naomi's life just came to the end at that point? And you think about it, if we ourselves had been left to ourselves, how many of us would have made shipwreck of our lives long ago? Every single one of us, wouldn't it be the case? Shipwreck because of the fact that we are sinners.

We're just totally undone. Well, in many ways, verses 1 to 5 describes the true state of man, doesn't it? It speaks of mankind forsaking the fountain of living water, which is God, forsaking the house of bread, doing his own thing, hewing out for himself cisterns like Jeremiah says, broken cisterns that can hold no water. That's the whole entire story of mankind departing from the house of bread in search of bread that can never really fill us. We spoke of a guarantee last time when we looked at Ruth chapter 1 verse 1 to 5, and that guarantee that I laid out before us is this, that to be far from Christ, to be far from the house of bread is to be far from life and hope.

It's absolutely impossible to find life and hope outside of Christ. And so J.C. Ryle, he put it this way in commenting about the beauty and glory of Jesus. He says, He is the sun. Without Him, men never feel warm.

He is the light. Without Him, men are always in the dark. He is the bread. Without Him, men are always starving. He is the living water.

Without Him, Men are always a thirst. Give them what you like. Place them where you please. Surround them with all the comforts you can imagine. It makes no difference.

Separate from Christ, the Prince of Peace. A man cannot be happy, guaranteed. And so thanks be to God that the the book of Ruth doesn't end in verse 5 But God who is rich in mercy he's at work and we're gonna explore that today though the chapter it begins and ends in Bethlehem The the real focus of the book really kind of takes place at the crossroads that we're gonna be looking at today in these few verses before us. And what God is doing in these few verses, He's saving more than a family. And not withstanding the darkness of the days of the judges what we see is that God is able and he is actually preserving his people but he's not only preserving his people he's doing something far greater than that he's also going to be Welcoming in the Gentiles and we get a sneak peek of that as well as we look at this today And so in this chapter ten years have elapsed from beginning to end and and you might ask yourself You know when is it too late?

To turn When is too much water kind of gone under the bridge? In your beyond hope, in your beyond help? Well really the summary of this book is redemption. And In this 17 verses we're looking at today. There's a word that appears 12 times, and it's the word return Return return and so this whole idea of this book is that there is hope in turning there's hope in returning to God There's hope in returning to the house of bread and finding peace and rest there And so in verses 6 & 7 as we get into the text here we find the decision in verse 6 & 7 Speaking of Naomi it says then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had Visited his people by giving them bread Therefore she went out from the place where she was and her two daughters-in-law with her And they went out on the way to return to the land of Judah.

And so in her brokenness, she's now a widow. Some news reaches her ears. Maybe it was a passing merchant, or maybe it was just someone going through town. And mercifully, God allowed the news to reach her ears that the famine back home in Bethlehem had ended. Covenant blessings were now back in the covenant land.

There's now bread in the house of bread after this woeful famine. And so she makes this decision. Naomi not only by herself but with her two daughters-in-law they decide to, both of them by the way, both of them now rendered widows, they decide to make their exodus from the land of Moab. And this is not just an account of migration right this is not just say I'm gonna move from here to there But there's spiritual connotation woven in all of this moving from a pagan land back to the land of promises That's what this whole thing envisions. It's a picture a little sampling of the new heavens and the new earth.

That's what they're going back to, the inheritance of God's people. And so they begin this walk. It's about 50 or 60 miles. It might have taken maybe about a week. And they start walking through this barren landscape.

Could you imagine three women by themselves embarking on this dangerous journey, fraught with all sorts of hazards you could only imagine? But somewhere along the way, the decision to leave Moab gives way to a discussion. And this is a discussion upon which everything hangs. Everything hangs. It's the choice between two cities and two worlds.

It's a choice between two destinies. And what's helpful as we go through these few verses here whether Naomi Intends to or not What she's doing is she's laying down before her daughters-in-law the cost of discipleship What it actually means to follow hard after God. I don't think she's intentional at all I think she's probably operating with natural affection But just like God uses everything for his own glory It seems like he's using Naomi's discussion and her questions and her challenges to draw out two different answers that end in two totally different destinations here. And so in verses 8 and 9 we see a little bit of this discussion. It says here, And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, return, the first time we see that word, to her mother's house, each of you.

The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant you that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband." So she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept. So somewhere along these dusty roads, Naomi has a second thought. And she tells her daughters-in-law, why don't you return? This is the first of four times, Think about that in this conversation, that she's about to tell her daughters-in-law to go back to Moab, to go back to Moab.

And they had every reason to go back, didn't they? They had their roots there, their language was there, they had their religion there, their customs, their family, everything was there. Their citizenship was in Moab. And there's no guilt trip here at all Naomi is not trying to guilt anything she's just simply saying I have nothing at all to offer you there's goodwill in her attempts I've got no husbands that you can marry when we get there. There's no sons in my womb.

I've got no security. There's no future for you with me. Just poverty and loneliness. I think what she didn't want them to do was to be influenced by hopes that were sure to fail as she takes them along the way and they get there and they find it even worse. It's in a sense she's saying to them after all you've suffered you deserve some rest in this life because remember they were also widows and you get a sense of this bond between these women this was a such a strong bond between them props maybe it was forged by mutual suffering because all of them had had husbands that had died and and here they were there's such emotion and they this idea of parting with a kiss this was a parting kiss Naomi was thinking that after she lays out the case, of course these two young ladies are gonna go back.

It was a foregone conclusion in Naomi's mind that after laying out these two verses, they would turn around. My life's a write-off, but yours doesn't have to be, is kind of what she's saying to them. But there's a surprise, and we find that surprise in verses 10 to 13. And they said to her, these are her daughters-in-law, Surely we will return with you to your people, but Naomi said turn back my daughters Why will you go with me are there still sons in my womb that they may be your husbands turn back my daughters go For I am too old to have a husband If I should say I have hope if I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons Would you wait for them till you were they were grown? Would you restrain yourselves from having husbands?

No my daughters For it grieves me very much for your sakes at the hand of the Lord has gone out against me." And so she makes this strong case. She lays it out before them but she finds these two young ladies have equally strong resolve to follow her. And so despite the fact that there's no food, there's maybe no safety, this love for Naomi, this mutual love seems to be the main driver, at least at first glance. They have a sincere and deep love for their mother-in-law. And the second time in verse 11 she says turn back.

There's no sons in my womb I'm an old lady that there's nothing I could do She's again laying upon them the cost of discipleship the third time in verses 12 and 13 She says turn back again go back go back Her most persuasive argument for turning back is laid out here. It seems almost iron-clad. She uses this language, this hypothetical language, even if. Even if it were possible. It's like saying when pigs fly, there's absolutely no chance that this is going to happen and turn out well.

And she says, no, my daughters. And she's got their best interests, she thinks, at heart. She says it's for your sakes that I'm making this request of you and she ends it with those words that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. You know, oftentimes we can look at our lives and we can make such simple, almost mathematical equations, can't we? We can look at things in such a simplistic way and we say one plus one equals two.

I have sinned and because I've sinned my life has turned out the way that it has and that's part of it there's part of it there's consequences to sin absolutely that's a reality but it's not all of it is it the fact is is that God is still at work and God is able and through what all this is going on the deep poverty and the widowhood and all of these things God is actually bringing a Gentile to faith in him of course invisible to all that are involved right here And so the ultimate message of the book of Ruth isn't this is what happens when you do wrong. There are consequences. I want to make that crystal clear, but the hand of Providence is working on something altogether different, Oftentimes beyond what we can ever think or see. And so God is at work in these few verses. And now we get to this, this is really the center of where I really want to focus us today in verses 14 to 18.

We've got this aspect of leaving on the one side and cleaving on the other. And this is really the most decisive point in the lives of Naomi's two companions, both Orpah and Ruth. And what we know is that salvation is entirely of the Lord. That's absolutely clear, something that we would all declare. But something that we also need to reckon with is that the Lord doesn't believe for us.

We believe in Him when He gives us the gift of faith. And so there's this aspect of human responsibility. No one, when they stand before the living God, will say, well, I didn't believe because you didn't give me faith to believe, or you didn't give me grace to believe. Every man is accountable for his sin, for his life, and he will give that account before the living God. And I want you young people to pay special attention because we're focused here on young people, younger women.

We don't know their ages, but Here are two young ladies that are set before us here today, and there's much that we can learn. And so in verses 14 and 15 we see this. Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. This is, you know, three women together, and it's a very traumatic time. This seems to be a theme.

They just weep and weep and weep and orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her and She said look your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods Return after your sister-in-law, And so I want us to freeze frame for a moment, just freeze frame on these two verses. We've got one young woman who leaves, and another young woman who cleaves. It seems that the arguments that compelled one of the young ladies to turn back the same argument is what compelled her to move forward and to want to pursue after God. And these are really the two worlds that you must choose between all humanity is really captured between these two women right here. You are either of one or the other and I want to spend some time looking at Orpah first because I think she had made some strong, we've seen her, she's made some strong resolutions.

She actually left the land of Moab and then at the first answer she said no no I'm still gonna go. She had some good intentions and some fair resolutions that she had made. But finally Orpah sees the reason in Naomi's arguments. She bids farewell with a kiss and she turns back from following Naomi. And I said freeze-frame because on this turning back, she turns her back on everything, doesn't she?

She does this reckoning, God plus nothing in Bethlehem. Everything minus God in Moab. The decision seemed so reasonable to her. Over the years she had probably heard something, the same message that Ruth heard and been exposed to some of the same customs that Ruth had been exposed to. But there was a different reckoning.

She does what Elimelech did ten years previously. The temporal, The temporal wins the day with Orpah, but it doesn't only win the day. It wins her eternity, and she ends up walking off the pages of Scripture, never to be mentioned again, based on her decision that she made here today. And every single one of you and myself, all the world is confronted with the exact same reckoning, aren't we? Jesus is the bread of life.

He's the one as I mentioned that the the house of bread foreshadows and And the question is is what is keeping you back? From following Christ What is keeping you back from from going to the house of bread. You that have not yet followed all the way and yielded yourselves to Christ. This is the most important question. Forget every other question today.

What is holding you back from following after the Lord? See the reality is this. She loved Naomi. There was again a natural affection between her and Naomi. Maybe she even appreciated Naomi's God to a degree.

There's no lack of God admirers in our society, are there? People that admire God or admire Jesus at least to some degree people who admire clean moral living They appreciate the fruit of the Christian life, but just not at the expense of leaving their gods or their people or their home. And so this is the trouble that so many people are in. They've heard the Word of God but yet they still stand outside of God. And so Naomi says, look, look, Naomi says, she capitalizes on Orpah's decision to leave and this is the fourth time now or pas gone and she comes with the fourth time to say go back return every reason every opportunity has been laid out for Ruth.

And now, now she's got this visual of her sister-in-law with her back going towards Moab. That was probably one of the most persuasive arguments as she's there looking. There's this element of peer pressure and time pressure loaded in here because when she fades off the horizon, another young lady making a trip back to Moab by herself. Again, you're beckoning for all sorts of danger. So she must decide.

Well, 1,200 years later, fast forward to John, chapter 6, when our Lord Jesus Christ was walking upon the the earth and he taught and he had great crowds following him you we've all gone through John the sixth chapter one day he fed five thousand men besides women and children and they wanted to make him king they wanted to make him king he left They actually rented ships and went across the lake. That's how desperate they were to be with Jesus. That they would expend their money and take their time to follow after him. Things seem like they were on the incline in Jesus's ministry. That is until one day he made the call to discipleship clear.

He said, if you will be my disciple you need to eat my flesh you need to drink my blood there must be an assimilation of everything that I'm teaching I'm not interested in men just wanting to be around me I'm not interested in people that want to be a part of the crowd no what I'm interested in are true disciples And you know you read some of the saddest verses in John chapter 6? The people, it says many, and it says these people they looked at one another and said this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? Who can understand it? And it says, from that time many of his disciples went back, and something very familiar that we're reading today, and walked no more with him.

You see, Orpah went back and walked no more towards the land of promise. So spiritually speaking, will you be among those that let the sun set in the valley of decision? Will you just go on another day when you have life laid out before you? See, will there be a son or a daughter of Orpah this day in this building that follows after her example? See, this is the amazing thing.

She had set out from the from the city of destruction, just like Christian did with his companions, but like Pliable. She turns back. She goes back to her enslavement in Moab. She had an unchanged heart and and I want to ask you just for a moment to imagine Orpah right now as we're sitting here in this church in 2019. Right now she's lost forever, isn't she?

She made the wrong decision. She ended up forsaking the fountain of life for something in this world. If you could speak to her today, sitting perhaps with the millions that have also followed Orpah's example, those who have come right up perhaps to the border of the promised land. You've been in church. You've got your own little Bible.

You read the Bible. Maybe you've got Christian parents. You've come up to the border, but you haven't yet crossed over. If you were to speak to Orpah today, what would she tell you? What would she say?

You see, this will be the most bitter thought for all of eternity, for so many that she heard of Bethlehem, she heard of the house of bread, she heard of the God of Israel. Not only that, she was on the way. She was on the way, but on second thought, on second thought, what was I thinking? And she ended up on her heel turning back and going back to Moab. Proverbs chapter one tells us about the voice of wisdom crying from the housetops and Calling out in all the corners of the house from the streets and saying he who is simple turn in and people seem to neglect the call and This is what the end of Proverbs has to say about those who neglect the call when it's made.

For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the complacency of Fools. You know what complacency means? Careless ease. Just gonna have lunch after and we'll talk a little bit about the careless ease of fools destroys them. Even if Orpah had climbed to the highest status in Moab, ask her today, was it worth it?

The gnawing thought in her heart, in her soul forever, as she sits in chains of darkness with no relief, no release. She had heaven extended to her. But in gaining everything the world could offer in Moab, she lost everything that heaven had extended. This is the great, great tragedy of Orpah. But I want to turn us now to behold the nature of true conversion in the life and in the heart of Ruth.

The last words we see are return after your sister-in-law. And in verse 16 to 18, we were stunned by what we see. This is the most well-known verse, verses in the book of Ruth. And so Ruth sees her sister-in-law fading off into the horizon. And I want to talk to us today about her confession.

And about what true conversion really is. What are the marks of true conversion? Of someone who has come to know Jesus Christ, who's come to know God in truth. Well, we see it here, but Ruth said, entreat me not to leave you. Entreat, stop asking me, or to turn back from following after you.

For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever 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. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me When she saw this is speaking of Naomi when she saw that she was determined to go with her She stopped speaking to her As I said earlier God does not believe for us does he? My question for you is do you believe?

Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the only begotten Son of God? So you can't you can't read these few verses here and escape asking yourself those questions, can you? You can't read verses six to 18 and say, oh, that's interesting, that's nice, without examining where you actually stand and what your response is to the call. And so there are two things that happen.

There are two things that happen in true conversion. We're going to talk about those here. There's really kind of these two marks. One has to do with God himself. The other has to do with God's people these two areas that we're going to focus on here And so speaking of of God himself what happens when a person truly comes to know God Well, what's what's remarkable here in the language that Ruth?

Uses is it should ring a bell. It should sound a little bit familiar to you. You see, the crescendo of her confession here is found in verse 16b. It says, your people shall be my people and your God my God. It's covenant language that she's using and it might sound familiar because God himself uses this exact same language in Genesis when he speaks to Abraham or in Leviticus chapter 26 verse 12 God is saying I will walk among you and be your God and you shall be my people There's this this unity and that's what Ruth is actually declaring here and by doing so what is she doing?

She's denying her own people her prior Affiliation means nothing even her blood relations are secondary or somewhere further down the line she renounces all the gods of Moab and this Moabitess one time so far from God has now been brought near in some ways you could say this Moabitess is really no longer a Moabitess She's totally changed. She's no longer a pagan polytheist, worshiping at false altars. And one thing you say, well that's way back then, do you know that today, even today, all men are worshipers? You will not find a human being on this earth that is not a worshiper You see we're more sophisticated We don't maybe bow down to little formed idols or even Buddhas or things like that But all men worship and the reason why all men worship is because all men were created in God's image and we cannot escape that Aspect that God has created us to be Worshippers at heart she she had something of the spirit of the Apostle Paul this young Woman making her way back when the Apostle Paul says in Philippians, but what thing things were gained to me? These I have counted loss for Christ yet indeed I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ you see that same spirit in Ruth that the apostle Paul has 1200 years later.

And so while so many, even maybe some of us today, halt between two opinions, we're at the crossroads, we're looking this way, we're looking that way, uncertain. Ruth is not uncertain. She's not interested in giving God a shot. Let's see how things turn out. She's not interested in test driving God to see if all this stuff is really true.

You see, I was reading an interview the other day, back in 2008, there's this famous pastor, Saddleback Church, called Rick Warren. And he was on Fox's News in 2008, on this show called, Hennity and Combs. I don't know if it's still in existence, but he was being interviewed and asked about God and asked about life and how people can be saved and all that and the man he's talking to is not a believer and the man says to him what does it say for all those people who do not accept Christ as their personal Savior Rick Warren sometimes called America's pastor says I'm saying that this is the perfect time to open their life, to give it a chance. I'd say give him a 60-day trial. To which Combs responds, oh like a book of the month club.

Warren says give him a trial. See if he'll change your life. I dare you to try trusting Jesus for 60 days or your money back guaranteed. Blasphemy, wickedness, God forbid that we should ever sell Jesus Christ like he's a used car, entirely minimizes What are at the things that are at stake by making this kind of cheap offer? That's not what we find in the Bible rather if any man wants to be my disciple Let him deny himself and let him take up his cross and follow me Jesus himself speaks of counting the cost.

Every time he had crowds it seems like he would thin the crowds by saying something like we heard about in John chapter 6. He wasn't interested in fans. He wants disciples, people that will follow him. See, many men could do with a savior. They're just not all that keen on a lord.

Many men, perhaps, would like to have their sins blotted out. And that's attractive. Maybe a God that saves us from our sins, but I don't know if I want a God that saves me from myself See that's the great need to be saved from Paul To be saved from who I am by nature See the need of the hour is not for someone to urge you to live your best life now. The need of the hour is for someone to speak to you about repentance and faith as it's found in Jesus Christ. And so verse 17, this young woman, Here she is and she drives the stake into the ground invoking the name of Yahweh the covenant name of God To bring condemnation on herself if she takes one step back to Moab You see what she says she says there's no turning back There's no escape hatch for me at all in case expectations aren't met.

She says this, the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts you and me. She's bringing a curse on herself. It's as though she's saying to Naomi. I don't think you understand I I will not go back because I can't go back my heart has been totally changed I see God and I'm now wanting all that God has on offer for me. I don't know if you've ever heard the story of about a man by the name of Hernan Cortez when he arrived in Mexico in 1519 to conquer Mexico.

And to begin the conquering, the first thing he did is he sunk the ships, his own ships in the harbor. That's what he did. He arrives there and all his men, well see, he's not there to see how things turn out. He burns or sinks all his ships in the harbor. Well, I guess we're here for good.

That's kind of the idea here that Ruth has, this conviction. And So both young women loved Naomi, didn't they? But undergirding Ruth's love, there was a resolve, there was a love for God. And it wasn't just a tepid thing, but she had a deep burning desire for God. She cuts off any retreat just like Peter when Peter hears that message in John chapter 6 and many walk away and walk no more with him.

Jesus turns around and he looks at them he says will you go away also and Peter speaks up he says Lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life see he was persuaded even though the crowds were departing I mentioned Paul and how Ruth had something of the spirit of Paul. She also had something of the spirit of Moses and what we read about him in Hebrews chapter 11 and it says by faith Moses when he became of age he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin esteeming their approach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt for he looked for the reward you see You see the calculations that this man Moses made as a prince in Egypt? He forsook that, because it says here he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. Somehow his affinity and his association because of God had changed. And so this brings us to the second piece of what happens when a man is truly converted.

On the one side you see the total change because of God and his love for God as we saw that in Ruth, but there's also this affinity to God's people. This is sometimes overlooked especially in our modern culture of raging individuality where every man is an island to himself. I want to ask you a question Would any disagree with me that there is no such thing as a Christian who does not love God? How could that be how could you have a Christian who does not love God's people? The answer to both of those is no.

You see, some people attach themselves to the people of God, you go to church and so on when it costs nothing, when the sun is shining and so on, but that's not Ruth's disposition here. Something altogether different is exemplified with Ruth. See Ruth understands the whole concept of what it means to be born again and she says your people shall be my people. You know oftentimes you the life of the church can be messy, can't it? We all know that.

I don't know if you noticed it, but sinners seem to be around here everywhere. I think I saw a few walk in this morning as I also entered in. We're everywhere. And some people will say, well, I love Jesus, I just can't stand the church, you know? Ligonier actually did a study, and the top ten reasons why people don't go to church.

I think one of the top two or three was people are just hypocrites and sinners. So one of the most common excuses. We all love to point out the sins and misdeeds of others don't we that's human human nature but I want to say to you do not let hypocrisy or even sin be a smoke screen to justify your own sins and keep you away from the covenant people of God here today. No doubt, no doubt those that name the name of Christ are called to a high standard of living. There's no doubt about it.

To actually live as though Christ is our Lord. There's this idea of discipleship. See what Christ offers us is not a mask to cover our face and hide our hypocrisy, no, but what Christ offers us is a robe of righteousness to clothe us entirely and make us new, not just to look better on the outside. And so she makes this declaration, your people shall be my people. There was this commitment to love the people of God while she had not even met one of them other than the family that she had lived with.

It doesn't matter, You don't decide to love the people of God based on our response one to another but because We have been bought by the blood of Christ There's value there's there should be a love even when we step on each other's toes and hurt each other say the wrong things but may the bonds of love capture us. That's what Jesus said, by this all men shall know that you're my disciples, that you love one another because he loved us first. And so Ruth shows us that there's a cost to following the Lord. She does something you could call it the great exchange. She leaves her own blood family, she leaves her own land, she signs up for an uncertain future.

As far as she knows it's a future of no husband, a future of no children, and she's going to an unknown people on top of everything where she might actually be ostracized and never really accepted and brought in. There's a new language, there's a new customs, a new neighborhood, new smells, everything's going to be different when she gets there And so the only way you can factor all of this and reckon and do the math is that the only attraction That was leading her along was God himself That's the only thing that was driving her. She realized her great need to be saved from what she is, not only from the things that she's done, but who she actually is. And as far as the human eye could see, as I said, she's signing up for certain destitution as she follows this other widow back home. And I want to ask this what what kind of woman is this?

I pray my hope as I was reading this oh that the modern church oh that hope Baptist Church would be filled with women, young women like this. Not only women but men like this. I was instructed by looking at this and humbled looking at Ruth's example. See faith that sees beyond the present, faith that clings, Faith that fires courage to go forward even when you can't see what the next step is going to be as Moses as it's written about Moses. Faith that looks to the reward.

That's the faith that's worth having. And so for the first time in this conversation at the crossroads, we find Naomi speechless. What do you say after someone lays these things out like Ruth laid them out and says when she saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her. Well now we come to the homecoming in verses 19 to 22 and it says now the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem and it happened when they had come to Bethlehem that all the city was excited because of them and the women said is this Naomi but 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 and the Lord has brought me home again empty Why do you call me Naomi since the hand of the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?" And you see this whole city is a stir. It was really a village.

Nothing, nothing, it wasn't highly populated or anything like that. Everyone knows everyone. But you could imagine, here's Naomi and Ruth, and people are maybe looking over their shoulder to see, you know, where are the men? You had a husband and your two sons. Who escorted you?

We knew you went to Moab, and they asked this question, is this Naomi? Imagine that. Utterly bankrupt, how embarrassing. She's now got to disclose everything that's happened. Verse 20, There doesn't appear to be any bitterness toward the Lord at all.

That's not how I read it, but she asks them That they no longer call her Naomi. Naomi means pleasant. Don't call me pleasant, but call me Mara, which means bitter Because the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. My experiences with Yahweh, with the Lord, have been so bitter. They've stripped me down to the bone.

Again, she's got this simple equation in her mind. I have sinned. I should never have left. This is what happens. That's kind of how she's factoring.

And there is again truth in the fact that there is consequence to our sins. But she has yet to see something that from the rubble of her life, God, the Lord is gonna rebuild something she could never imagine ten years on. And she says these words, I went out full and the Lord has brought me home again empty. We've got this idea of fullness and emptiness. They had set out as a family.

They had full plans for the future. They were full of hopes of prosperity, full of themselves as they departed 10 years earlier. She had three men to protect her but but now none. And in the commotion of all of this it seems as though Ruth is totally forgotten. People are surrounding Naomi.

Naomi says I came back empty with nothing And she doesn't even recognize the value that's in her daughter-in-law. And it's true that God had used calamity to bring Naomi back to the house of bread. But he hadn't only brought Naomi back, had he? He brought Ruth back. He'd saved her daughter-in-law, and not only had he saved Naomi's daughter-in-law, but he was going to use her to execute the plan of the ages to bring about Jesus Christ somewhere down the line and so chapter 1 really is all summarized in verse 22 it begins in Bethlehem it ends there but but the circumstances are totally different and Naomi is also different it says in verse 22 now Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her who returned from the country of Moab.

Now they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest and it began with famine but it ends with the promise of this harvest. It's almost like a shadowing of Naomi's life that begins with all of this despair and destruction, but by the time we get to chapter 4, we've got the happiest grandmother on the face of the earth. You know, it's all full of bitterness at certain parts, but full of happiness. Just like famine leads to this harvest. And the Lord is gonna bring about something so great.

This word barley harvest is kind of like the first glimmers of what we're gonna see as we go through the rest of the book. You know during the time of the Reformation the reformers had this saying, post tenebras looks after darkness, light. And that's what we see here in Naomi's life. And so you could imagine Ruth and Naomi kind of walking in almost like those that have been storm-tossed You know climbing out of the water and walking along the beach after floating a couple of days out on the ocean Sopping wet exhausted, but they find a haven in Bethlehem. They're back home This is where God is going to unfold one of the greatest miracles of all time in Providing a Redeemer a kinsman redeemer for Ruth and for Naomi and the greatest miracle of all time when the King of Kings is born in Bethlehem some centuries later.

Verse chapter 4 verse 16, think about this for a moment, says then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom. You see, God blessed Ruth with a redeemer and they had a child together named Obed and she became a nurse to him. You could imagine Ruth is just, Naomi is ecstatic. And you could imagine the author even more ecstatic because he's writing centuries later. And he's just there amazed because he writes the last verse of the book of Ruth verse 22 where it says Obed begot Jesse and Jesse begot David but we how about us what do we have to be happy about see we have something far greater to be pleased about than just the fact that here's a grandmother with a little boy or even a great king coming from the line of this little boy but the King of Kings Jesus Christ and you just wonder what Naomi would think if she could see everything that God would do through her line all the way down through the ages.

And this is the way God seems to work. He works in the mundane and in the simple. That's all Naomi's life seemed to be, at least on the surface. And your life might be like that as well. Your life might be a life that's unheralded, it's maybe unknown, it's mundane, you just go through the motions day in and day out, so you think.

But all the while, God is at work. He's doing something amazing in all of our lives, those of us who know Him. And sometimes we have just such a little sense of what he's doing and and right now Even the most insightful Christian sitting here among us today He's really only on the seashore, isn't he? He's really only on the seashore in his grasp of who God is and what he has in store for those Who trust in him and we're on this seashore But there's a vast continent of God That will enjoy for all of eternity something that we can't even compute and understand right now the depths of the goodness And the beauty of God is what all of eternity will be uncovering and unfolding little by little And so Just by way of conclusion for those of us that are believers, I just want to say do not fear committing an unknown future to a known God. If you know Him, then don't fear.

If you're already following Him, Are there things that are hindering you from following him more fully, perhaps more faithfully? Well I want to just quote from another woman, we've spent our time with a number of women, Susanna Spurgeon said this, it is mercy that our lives are not left for us to plan, but that our Father chooses for us. Else might we sometimes turn away from our best blessings and put from us the choicest, loveliest gifts of his providence. For those of us that are unbelievers here underneath the sound of my voice, those who don't know the Lord, we've seen set before us today Ruth on the one side and Orpah. And here's the guarantee that you will follow the path of one of these two women.

Every one of us is on that that path already and as I said earlier salvation is all of grace and the Gracious call goes out to you today How long? How long? Will you resist and reject? The call of God or will you be like Orpah and turn your back on all that God has on offer? The most tragic thing in all of eternity will be that thought in your mind, unless you repent and turn and believe in the gospel.

You see, Jesus said, he said in that beautiful sermon, enter in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it because narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life And there are few who find it. You see Jesus Christ. He is the way he's the door In the true church consists of people That are born-again believers that have been regenerated by the Spirit of the Living God, not those who just want to give God a little test drive. And the idea, the guarantee that we find here in Ruth is this, is that until we are reconciled to God through His Son, everything that you look for, guaranteed, everything you look for satisfaction in, a husband, a wife, or a nice home, a new vehicle, a reputation, a great job, perhaps the esteem of others, the allurement of all the pleasures this world can offer, you know, the accomplishment of your wishes. People today, they have something called a bucket list and when I get to the end I'll be so happy.

You'll be terribly terribly disappointed because God has formed you for himself, He's formed you for Himself and the human mind is such, the heart is such that it thirsts for happiness, it thirsts for peace but it cannot be found elsewhere but in Him. And so That's my desire for you today is that you would you would find your rest in Jesus Christ and in the house of bread in Bethlehem in the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords there's no better place to be than to be at rest with him. To have all of your sins washed away and everything made new and everything made clean. Not because of any works of righteousness that I've done, but because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. Let's pray.

Oh Lord, we come before you here this morning Lord we are so glad for those of us who have been made to see much like Ruth That there is nothing better than being a son or a daughter of the king. Oh God I fear I fear that there may be some like Orpah that might leave this place today that have heard your word, that have heard the good news of the gospel, but Lord turn on their heel and go back. I pray Lord that you would arrest souls, that you would do your work and bring glory and honor to your name. You alone deserve all the glory and all the praise Lord. We do thank you for meeting with us and pray that you would bless us.

In Christ's name Amen.