this evening to the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth. And I'm not sure what I put in the bulletin. I may have put the Ruth as the lady to study, but if I did, Ruth is the book we're reading from, not the lady that we're going to study. Ruth, the book of Ruth, chapter 1, begin reading with verse 1. It came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, which tells us, if you go back to the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, this took place, she lived during the time of the judges, back in the book of Judges. when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, the name of his wife, Naomi, the name of his two sons, Malon and Kileon, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there. And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab." I'll throw this in, but I may mention it again later. Do you remember the rules of marriage that Moses laid down in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy? A Jew was only to marry a Jew within their tribe. So just keep that in the back of your mind. They took them wives of the women of Moab. not a Jew, not one of their own tribesmen, but a foreigner, actually an enemy of the Jews. The name of the one was Orpan, the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelt there about 10 years. And Melon and Killian died also, both of them, and the woman was left of 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 how that the Lord had visited His people and given them bread. Wherefore, she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. Naomi said unto her daughters, her two daughters-in-law, go, return each of you to her mother's house, The Lord deal kindly with you as ye have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant ye that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and wept. And they said unto her, surely we will return with thee unto thy people. They recognized that they were not part of her people. We will return with thee unto thy people. Naomi said, turn again, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Under the law of Moses, if a man married and died before he had produced children, his brother was to go in. and have children. If that didn't work, they were to go all the way down the line. So she is asking, even if I could conceive tonight, even if I could have another son to be your husband's, would you be willing to wait that long? Basically. Turn again, my daughters. Go your way. For I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband also tonight, and should bear sons, would ye tarry for them till they were grown? Would ye stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.' They lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth claimed unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back under her people and under her gods. Not my people, not my gods, her people and her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Now, I have to stop. My wife and I in eight days, will be married 52 years. Everybody wants to know what the secret is. You men, it's simple. Yes, ma'am, you're right, I'm sorry. That's the secret to being married for so long. But when we got married, there was a very popular wedding song taken from verse 16. and I'm not gonna sing it, but the song, which we did not sing at our wedding, but it's, the song went, whether thou goest, I will go, thinking husband to wife, wife to husband, where thou lodgest, I will lodge, and thy people, thy family shall be my people, and we will worship God together. But I still love that song, even though it's been many, many years ago. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her. So they too went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them. And they said, is not this Naomi? And she said unto them, call me not Naomi. Call me Mara. for the Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me." So Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. Everything we know about Naomi is taken from these four chapters in Ruth. Naomi is not mentioned before, nor is she mentioned after this. Naomi demonstrates what happens when a person allows troubles to move them away from God and away from God's place out into the world. We will see how she handled pain, how she handled heartache. We will see also how that the Lord turned tragedy into triumph. Now, obviously, we're not going to do all of that tonight. For the sake of time, I'm only going to cover the first few instances about Naomi, what happened, why it may have happened, and how it affected her, then I will come back to you and I and see how things affect us. First of all, who is or was Naomi? We find out that she was a Jew who had married within her tribe. She married a man, an Israelite of Bethlehem, Judah. After she got married, they had two sons. We're not told how old the sons were. but they were old enough, they got married not very long after they got into the land of Moab. I think I can speak for most of us who have children that our children, and I don't say this in a bad sense at all, but sometime our children become the delight of our life. I remember when our kids were young. Well, they're still young enough to be my kids, but when they were much, much younger, I hate sports. I've just never been into sports, but my kids somehow were. I went to baseball games. I went to basketball games. We've been to soccer games. We've been to volleyball games. Why? Because my kids were in those sports. And even though I couldn't hit a t-ball, y'all know what a t-ball is? Everybody know what a t-ball is? I couldn't hit a t-ball, yet I was very proud of my sons. I was very proud of what they accomplished and how good they were in all kinds of sports. Children can be a something that we take great delight in. And so she had two sons. Again, we're not told a lot about them, but being a typical mom, I am quite certain in my mind that she took great pride and great joy in her children. But then something happened. A terrible famine came along. And I know a lot of people, and I'm becoming more persuaded almost daily, that America is in for a great famine. Just look around us. You know, look around us. Our oil reserve is so low that right now, if we went to war, we would not have an oil reserve enough to fight hardly one battle, let alone if we were attacked on two sides. Inflation has so hit that many people have lost their homes and lost everything. I think America is on the verge, maybe closer than we think, to a mighty famine. This famine, we know, was sent from God And when this famine hit, it left most people without food or anything else. And so what did Elimelech and Naomi do when things got tough? They left God's promised land and fled to a foreign country of God's people's enemy. They could have stayed, put their trust in God, and maybe lost a few pounds, maybe didn't have three good meals a day, but they might have survived had they stayed in God's country and stayed with God's people. Thousands of other people stayed and survived. Thousands of other Jews had the same famine, but they did not go running off into a foreign country made up of God's enemies. The majority of people stayed right where they were and they survived the famine. In fact, Boaz, who we'll see later on, became very prosperous during the famine. I wonder if, maybe they panicked, maybe. Oh my, there's a famine. What are we going to do? We don't have enough groceries to get through past six months. There's no crops. The famine has killed all the crops. Oh, what are we going to do? How are we going to survive? You know, what are we going to eat? Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? How are we going to make it during this famine? Maybe they simply panicked. Maybe they thought they should just take matters into their own hands. Why trust God when God gave us a brain? We need to use the brain that God gave us and figure out on our own, with our own brain, how we can survive the famine. And so they took things into their own hands. And they fled God's country. and God's people. Not long after they get there, her husband dies. I have to wonder what might have happened had they stayed in God's place and trusted God. Did he die because they were out of God's land? Did he die because he would not trust God when troubles came? We know from Naomi's own words that she recognized that the death of her husband and the death of her two sons, she by her own testimony recognized that it was from God. God had afflicted them. God was chastening them because They left God's country. They left God's people. They left God's tabernacle. They left God's word. They took matters into their own hand, used their own human reasoning, and even Naomi had to admit that God has dealt evil with us. Then both of her sons married. I have been blessed, and I say that very sincerely. 52 years, God has given me, okay, five years out of 52, God has given a wonderful wife, mother, friend, companion. I was talking to someone recently, and I made this statement. I can't even begin, I can't even begin to start thinking What would happen if my spouse died? Naomi lost her husband very soon. And then to lose your only two children. Tough time. Tough time. A few weeks ago, I don't know why this popped in my brain, but I began trying to remember how many funerals I have conducted over the years. I know I conducted the youngest, was a young baby that was born. Baby lived just a very few hours. When the baby died, I was at the hospital with mom and dad. They were both very faithful, very active in church. It was probably the hardest funeral I think I ever held. I've held funerals for young teenagers, middle teens, late teens. early 20s. Can't remember the oldest, but I've seen lots and lots and lots of people who have lost a spouse or a child. And there's no grief that I can compare to the loss of a spouse or the loss of a child. We had a lady in Ohio that she lived many years after I left. Last time we visited her, she was 105, I think. somewhere around 105. While I was there, I conducted the funeral for all but one of her kids, and I conducted the funeral of many of her grandkids, and even a great-grandchild. I've seen lots of death. I've seen lots of heartache. I've seen lots of grief, so I can take some of that and kind of imagine how Naomi, what she must have been going through. Her sons died. I can't help but wonder, had they stayed in Bethlehem, would her kids have survived? I said, you're judging. I'm not judging, but I do know, biblically I do know, that when we get out of God's will, those whom God loves, He chastens. I do know that. They were definitely out of God's country. away from God's people, away from God's place of worship, and away from God's Word. So I can't help but wonder if this was the result of leaving God. Naomi became bitter. In verse 20, she said, call me not Naomi. The word Naomi in Hebrew means pleasant or delightful. Don't call me pleasant, I'm not. Don't call me delightful, I'm not. Call me Mara, which means bitter, angry. Don't call me pleasant. I'm not pleasant. I'm not happy with what's happened. I am not pleased with what God has done. Call me angry. Call me bitter. but don't call me delightful. Don't call me pleasant." She became bitter, angry over God's events in her life. Now, Let's bring it down to you and I. You and I cannot control events that come in our life. We cannot control what happens. Because of doctor's orders, I was going back to the gym, trying to strengthen my legs a little bit. And I was going three, four times a week. And then I got pneumonia, and I have not been in two weeks. But before I left that Friday, two weeks ago, before I left, I told the girl at the counter, I said, I'll see you Monday, Lord willing. She said, oh, we'll see you Monday. And I said, you can't guarantee that. You cannot tell me that you and I will be standing here Monday morning because neither one of us know what can happen over the weekend. Saturday, I started getting sick. Sunday, I was sick. By Monday, I was really sick, ended up in the ER. And I say that, and when I go back, I put a reminder. You don't know what's gonna happen tonight. You don't know what's gonna happen in the morning. You don't know where you will be tomorrow. Oh, I'm gonna get up and go to work. Those of you that aren't retired. I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna go to work, and I'm gonna work eight hours. You do not know that. Things happen. Things happen. I was a hospital chaplain in Texas. There was the one manager, there were five of us that rotated call. One week, you know, and then go around, and then one week and go around. I did it again. But the one supervisor, or she was the night manager, she didn't care who was on call that week. If something happened, she called me, which means I got a lot of calls. My job was to meet the family at the hospital, pronounce that their loved one had died, try to comfort them, you know, go through certain steps. I remember one time she called me. And there had been a major, major, major wreck just outside of town. Family was a husband and wife, brother and sister-in-law, and a son. Son was in the middle, in the back seat. Husband and wife were in the front seat. Brother-in-law and sister-in-law were in the back seat. So I went straight to the hospital, they prepared me, you know, what's going on, what's happened. A big truck crossed over the center line, hit him head on. Killed mom and dad, or husband and wife, instantly, just like that. Killed the uncle, instantly, just like that. The sister-in-law was in critical condition. Only the son was not hurt badly. They were from out of town. Actually, they were in town for a funeral of a relative who had died. They were in town. I finally managed to track them down. How would you like to tell the family Three of your family members were killed just like that. The fourth one is in critical condition. I've seen all kinds of reactions. I guarantee you, when they left the motel that morning, going to the funeral home, not one of them thought they would be dead by evening. Actually, late morning. Not one of them thought that we're gonna die in about, let's see, we're leaving the motel, it's 30 minutes to the funeral home. We got 15 minutes to live, guys. 15 minutes, we're all gonna die. That was not in their mind. They were not thinking that. Just like that, three of them in eternity. Wasn't planned. We complain about the weather. It's either too hot in the, what is it? In the summertime, we want it as cold as we thought. No, in the wintertime, I'll get it. In the wintertime, we want it as hot as we complained about the heat in the summertime. Did I get that out right? We complain, we're the most complaining people in the world. My favorite answer is, and I took my wife out today to celebrate her retirement and also her birthday last week, and as we were standing there waiting for our table, One of the ladies said, how are you today, sir? I said, I am fantastic. She said, isn't it a beautiful day? Sun shining, it's bright, it's sunny. And I said, ma'am, every day that God makes is a beautiful day. 20 below zero or 110, this is the day the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. and yet we grumble and gripe about something we have no control over. I'm afraid many times we've been spoiled by having things so good. Let me tell you, famine is coming. In one way or other, In one shape or form, famine is coming. How will you respond? I've seen people get so mad. They get angry at God. Because God took my husband. God took my child. When things get tough, we lean unto our own understanding. Contrary to what Solomon said, lean not unto thine own understanding. Will circumstances make you bitter? Doesn't have to. It's a choice that we make. Naomi let circumstances make her so bitter, so angry. She didn't even want to be reminded of delightful and pleasant. Just call me bitter. Call me angry. And sadly enough, there's a lot of people just like Naomi today. Father, we come.