Message
Ruth 1:1-5
“A Dead-End Short Cut”.
We have all done it haven’t we.
You’re driving to a specific destination and someone says, “I know a shortcut!”
Do you really?
Often your first instinct is to stick with what you know, stay on the regular path. But sometimes you think, “Why not?”
Why not?
Because most short cuts are not shorter, and they don’t take less time, and they are usually not as smooth, and you can easily get lost. And sometimes … sometimes … you end up at a dead-end and you need to turn around and go back to where you started.
A “Dead End Short Cut”.
It is how life goes at times … in a very literal way.
It is also how the book of Ruth opens … but more in a spiritual way.
Let’s read the opening verses.
While you are looking for this chapter let me tell you that, for the rest of the series, we will take a chapter at a time. But I have limited this sermon to the first five verses because it will help us get an understanding of the context and the situation that is at hand.
Also notice that there is very specific detail here. A specific time. Specific places. Specific names.
This is history … a real event which took place and was important enough to have a book in the Bible dedicated to it.
Indeed Ruth is the only book in the Old Testament named after a non-Israelite.
God preserved this story because he wanted generations of Jewish people … and generations of non-Jews … and generations of Christians … to learn something about the nature of our relationship to God.
Read Ruth 1:1-5
Now I still have the title up on the screen there “A Dead End Short Cut”.
Can you see some of the short-cuts?
The move to a foreign land is a short-cut … it shows a lack of repentance and faith.
The marriage of Israelites to non-Israelites is a short-cut … it is endangering a family heritage.
Staying in Moab for 10 years is a shortcut … it impacts the ability of the family to faithfully worship Yahweh.
Elimelech’s shortcut solution which was made without using the ways of God … and it ended in disaster. Let’s see how it all works by having a closer look at the text.
In the days when the judges ruled …
We are in a very specific time period of Israel’s history. What were the days of the judges like?
Go back to Judges 2
Read 2:1-3
• The Israelites have not obeyed and now they have to live with the temptation that comes with living among the pagan nations.
• It is a constant problem
Read 2:8-12
• The death of Joshua is the event that brings the time of the judges into effect.
• That time won’t end until king Saul is put in place by God through the hand of Samuel.
• This time lasts for about 330 years.
Read 2:18-19
• This summarises the cycle that keeps happening during the 330 years.
• The people sin … God allows one of the surrounding nations to rule them … the people cry out to God for help … God raises up a Judge … the people repent … there is peace for some time after the judge dies … then the people sin again.
A telling description about the time of the Judges comes from two very significant phrases that are repeated in the book of Judges:-
• In those days Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (17:6; 21:25)
• and they did evil in the sight of the Lord (2:11, 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1).
That is the context. The story of Ruth happens during the last 100 years of this time.
So what has all of this got to do with taking a short cut?
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.
At some point the people found themselves being hungry because the land was not producing the food it normally produced.
And we think, “So what, there are times in Australia when drought happens.”
Famine and droughts happen all the time.
That is true. But God has specifically chosen this nation. And this is what God has previously said about famines:-
15 If you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,
16 then … you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it …
20 And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit …
25 I will … send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.26 When I break your supply of bread … you shall eat and not be satisfied.
Leviticus 26
We look at a famine and go, “That is climate change!”
When and Israelite experienced a famine they should say, “God is telling us that we have sinned!”
God was looking for a response of repentance.
Elimelech instead choose a response of retreat.
In the face of a clear message from God Elimelech decided to run away and not deal with the real issue. It’s a personal example in the time of the judges of someone who did what was right in his own eyes. And it just made matters worse.
Let’s just stop there for a moment and think about ourselves.
We need to understand that God is sending us some pretty specific messages today.
He doesn’t do it by relying on weather patterns and lack of food.
Rather we have the Word of God … Scripture … the Bible. I want you to think about the year that has just past.
There were times in 2017 when life was not going well. Days when you found it a little difficult and you were wondering a little where God was. It wasn’t because God was specifically punishing you – but life was just … hard. I’m not thinking about those days.
Rather I want you to think about those days when you decided that taking a short-cut on the way God wanted you to act was better than listening to God and following his ways.
When you showed anger, rather than patience, did that short-cut work?
When you retaliated, rather than be gracious, did that short-cut work?
When you lied, rather than be truthful, did that short-cut work?
Or when you gave into lust?
Or when you were greedy?
Or when you were lazy?
Self-oriented? Materialistic? Rude?
We need to understand that taking the short-cut is actually very easy. It is easy to let our sinful nature have control because that is the nature we were born.
It is part of our character.
It is part of our identity.
It is even a part of our life that we easily make excuses for.
But where does that get us?
Now understand what I am saying … and not saying.
I’m NOT saying that I want you to start following all these rules and regulations or that you need to be driven by a law-based life.
I AM saying that, when we allow the Scripture to direct and guide and form and lead, we will find that our life becomes amazingly blessed.
What we are talking about here is experiencing and living these words of Jesus.
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10)
Christianity is not mediocrity. It is enthusiasm. Joyful abundance. Blessed living. Peace in chaos. Hope in distress.
It is all of this and more.
Paul describes it this way.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (Ephesians 3:17-20)
Look at that description. That is full living. Who of us would not want to experience this sort of life?
All of us want it. But it won’t come to us if we keep taking short cuts.
Doing what is right in our own eyes.
Not taking the time to listen to respond to God.
Not walking the journey with God fully by our side.
Let’s make the commitment and say to Jesus “I want to live … having life to the full.”
That is what Jesus has come to bring. A real answer to all our needs.
He deals with the sin issue … taking away all that stands between us and God. He pays the necessary price.
He gives eternal security by dealing with those pieces of our lives which are broken and battered and shaken and torn.
He creates all things new … new life … new hope … a new day.
All so we can look ahead and say, “No matter what takes place I will be with my Saviour.”
But it isn’t just about eternity. Jesus is all about now.
Helping us now. Giving strength now.
He is Saviour, Lord, Emmanuel, God, King, the sacrificial lamb, our salvation, our atonement.
But he is also … FRIEND.
The now, the immediate, the close one … waking with us.
Walking with the Lord brings … LIFE.
Doing what is right in our own eyes leads to BARRENNESS.
That is what happens in our text.
Elimelech takes a short-cut to barrenness
He hasn’t allowed the famine to cause him to repent.
But, more significantly, he moves his family to Moab.
On a clear day you could see the greenness of the fields of Moab across the Dead Sea … and it would have been a stark contrast to the brown and dusty fields of Bethlehem. Each day it would have beckoned as a getaway option – only 80 kms away by the shortest route available.
The grass is always greener on the other side isn’t it.
But there is another reality … the grass is always greener over the septic tank!
Making judgements on the basis of practical reason alone is not a sound way to live before God. Especially when it came to Moab.
Any Israelite reading this book of Ruth would immediately ask, “Why in the world did he move to Moab?”
The Moabites originated after God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. As Lot and his two daughters waited in a cave the daughters decided that the only way to have children was to make their father drunk and make him the father of his grand-children. The fruits of their evil deeds were two sons … one called Moab the father of all the Moabites. They became a nation that never followed Yahweh.
Moving to Moab was not just a decision to move to another area of land. It was a decision that would guarantee even more spiritual decay and ruin.
Even if nothing went wrong … and no-one died … this is a bad decision.
Many years ago the pastor of a country church in snow-bound Canada went to visit a parishioner who had not been at church for three months.
After a bit of small talk the two men didn’t say anything, they just sat looking at the open fire.
After a long time of silence the pastor took the fire poker and moved one of the hot burning coals away from the fire. It glowed hot for a while, but then it eventually began to glow less and finally it stopped glowing.
The pastor left without saying anything. The parishioner was back in church the next Sunday.
Now I know you can have a significant spiritual life with Jesus on your own. But keeping away from those places where spiritual encouragement and spiritual teaching takes place just makes it all the more harder … and unnecessarily so.
How many people do you know in your life who … without really setting out to deliberately lose their spiritual fervour … just faded away spiritually because other things became more important than meeting with God’s people?
It happens so easily. In my experience I have seen it happen too easily. Jesus has put his spiritual community in place for a really good reason.
It is part of this “having life and having it to the full” dynamic.
We should encourage each other in this. Not in a “I’m going to make you feel guilty” way.
But in a “I’m excited to walk this journey with you” way.
Because disasters happen. And when you are on your own it is hard to deal with.
That is what happens here doesn’t it. A roller coaster of disaster.
First Naomi’s husband dies. She was widowed before life insurance policies were ever written and she had moved away from all family and community support systems. This was a time when the widow was in about the most forlorn position you can imagine — without resources, dependent, unable to fend for herself or to provide for herself.
Next her two sons become more attached to the society by marrying Moabite women. They were only going to go for a while they end up living the for about 10 years. They are just getting more and more comfortable in that non-believing society.
The last straw is the death of her two sons … it seems that it happened pretty much at the same time. And to top it off … even after 10 years of marriage, neither son has produced an heir.
It couldn’t be much worse. Naomi’s is outside the land of promise.
She was hopeless, in despair, and empty having lost material comfort and security and carrying the pain of, not one death, but three.
Her family hovers on the brink of extinction. And in Israel there is no greater tragedy then for your family to cease to exist.
It was a Dead End Short Cut.
In the coming weeks we will see what God does with this.
In the meantime we are challenged aren’t we?
Are you presently being tempted to trust in yourself to handle life’s trails, rather than rely upon God?
Are you currently making choices based upon the circumstances rather than upon God's Word?
Perhaps you are in a place of loss because you did what was “right in your own eyes.”
If so then it is definitely time to rethink your strategy. You see … we are just at the beginning of this wonderful little book. It’s a book which is going to show us that God specialises in turning any situation totally around. There is hope in Jesus.
He is faithful even when we are not.
He is loving even when we have become bitter.
He is calling us to stop talking the shortcuts and seek Him that we may experience His faithfulness.
Prayer.
