A Hardened Heart and the House of Bread

A Hardened Heart and the House of Bread

Let’s turn in our Bibles to Ruth chapter 1 this morning. Ruth, please turn there together with me to Ruth chapter 1. Beginning in verse number 1, this morning, we read, ‘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 sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elemelek, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Malon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there, and Elemelek, they always husband, died, and she was left and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab, the name of one was Orpa and the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelled there about ten years. And Malon and Chilion died also both of them, and the woman, I’m sorry, yes, 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 before she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving 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. And Naomi said unto 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 grants you that she may find rest each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed him, and they lifted up their voice and wept, and they said unto her, surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And they only 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? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should have an husband also tonight, and should also bear sons, would you tear for them till they were grown? Would you stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieves me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is going out against me.” And they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clavened to her, and she said, “Behold thy sister-in-law is going back unto her people, and unto her gods return thou after thy sister-in-law.” And Ruth said, “And treat me not to leave the or to return from following after thee, for wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou largest I will lodge, thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God, where thou diest will I die, and where and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee in 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 Bethelheim, and they came to pass when they were come to Bethelheim that all the city was moved about them, and they said, “Is this Naomi?” And she said unto them, “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath felt 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 Moabitis, her daughter-in-law with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethelheim in the beginning of Barley Harvest. Let’s mark our Bibles to this portion as our text this morning, Ruth chapter 1.

And let’s bow our heads in a word of prayer. Father, as we have opened your word, oh how our hearts long for you to open our eyes that we may behold wonderful things out of your word. We pray, Lord, that you would just speak to us today, Lord. There are sometimes we can come into dry places in our lives where it seems that you’re not speaking to us like you did at one time before. Sometimes, Lord, it may be because we have hardened our hearts that we’re not seeing wonderful things like we once saw. It’s not that you’ve changed, Lord, so many times it becomes true that we have changed, that our hearts have become hard. And while we know the information, it is not vibrating in our breast, in our inner man. It is not we might say that the cords that were vibrating at one time are now slumbering. They’re not any longer vibrantly making music as they once did. So Lord, we pray that you would revive us if that be the case today, that you would stir us in the inner man, that you would stir the smoldering embers, and we pray, Lord, that you’d give us a burning heart. Give us a greater love in response to your great love for us. Help us to be filled with your love, even as we see that you’re going to do for Naomi in this passage today. We pray and ask these things, praying your blessing upon every aspect of this service as we go forward in Jesus’ name. Amen.

As we look at the book of Ruth, it tells the story of a family that left under conditions they considered to be necessary to leave. There was a famine in the land. There was difficult, surely difficult times ahead if they were to stay in Bethlehem. There was going to be shortage. There was going to be a trial. So, in Limelike, the head of this home decided perhaps in concert with his wife. I don’t know. We don’t read Yay or Nay on whether she was on board with this decision or if she just went along. We don’t really know exactly, but it’s likely that there was a family decision made and Limelike was ultimately responsible for that decision to go somewhere where there wasn’t a famine, somewhere where they would have more resources and provisions to make it through that difficult time. Yet, it seems like this decision is pretty clear that this was not really God’s will for them to go to the land of Moab just because there was a famine in the land. In fact, if you remember, Abraham went down to Egypt when there was a famine in the land that God had called him to go to. The land that he had promised him and when he got to that land, the famine hit. So, he ran to Egypt. Israel, as a whole, had a tendency to run to Egypt, didn’t they? To run to Assyria, to run to Assyria, to run to these different nations for help rather than looking and turning with all their hearts to God in the time of distress. Now, I understand the Bible does make it clear that Jesus said when you’re persecuted in one city, go to another one, right? There are times where we need to run. There’s a time where Joseph was told by the angel to go down with his newborn son, Mary had given birth to him, go to Egypt. So, there are times where we may need to flee. But the key is this, is that God, we don’t really think about God telling them to go to Moab. We don’t see that God led them to Moab. They evidently just made the decision, we’re going to go to Moab. And we’re going to go down there because we don’t want to starve. We don’t want to have this difficulty or whatever the case was in their thinking. So, it seems that in Limalek, lean to his own understanding rather than being led by the Lord in this decision.

In verse 1 of Ruth 1, we read, ‘Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled.’ So, we know the time frame. We know the setting of this story was in the days of the judges. And we know the characteristic of the days of the judges was that in those days, judges 17, verse 6, also I believe in judges 20 or 21, it will also tell us there that in those days there was no king in Israel. But every man did that which was right in his own eyes. We might say that that was what actually Limalek did here. He did what was right in his own eyes rather than consulting the Lord. You know, when Lot went down to the cities of the plain, he didn’t go because the Lord led him there. He went because he saw and it looked good. And so, he went. Samson didn’t marry who he married because the Lord led him to do it. He married, he saw the wife based on her beauty and not the Lord’s leading in that. And based on his own understanding of how he would defeat the Philistines. But it was not until God allowed his eyes to be put out that he finally looked up to God with his heart for direction and wisdom. If we’re going to have the mind of God, we need to be in the Word of God. We need to be in God’s Word. And we need to be asking him to show us wonderful things out of his Word. We need to ask him for wisdom. If we lack wisdom, James says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask who God, right? And God will give it. We might say that God, well, we can say with certainty that God doesn’t, that no famine, no pestilence, no war, no disease comes without God permitting it to happen in his plan. And God allowed this famine. Why did he bring and permit this famine to come to pass? It was because he wanted his people to turn to him. Remember, this was a time when every man was doing that, which was right in his own eyes. And we are to be, our lives are to be the contrast to the culture around us. Our lives should be different than the world in its thinking. We should not do that, which is right in our own eyes. We should not lean to our own understanding if we are wanting God to direct our paths. We say we want that. So if we do want that, we must lean not to our own understanding, but trust in the Lord with all of our heart.

Bethalahim, as you probably have heard a number of times in the past, means house of bread, house of bread. Bethalahim is the place they left. Symbagogically, they left the place of bread, although it was in a time of famine, we understand that, but they left the house of bread and they went to the dirty wash pot, Moab. They went down to this place that was far from God, as far as the nation goes. And yet, they went, and even more so, they went there without God’s direction in leading to go there. When the going gets tough, our natural tendency is often to run from our troubles, right? Run from the problem. Run away from the hardship. And instead of waiting on the Lord, maybe the Lord will lead us away. Maybe he’ll say, you need to stay. The Lord advised, in fact, the Lord was against those that went down to Egypt. Remember Jeremiah spoke, they said, ask the Lord what we should do. And he says, don’t go down to Egypt. They said, well, we really want to go down to Egypt because we’re going to die if we stay here in the land. But the Lord says, no, Babylon essentially is a tool in my hand. And if you will submit to my plan, then I will keep you even in the captivity. No, they went to Egypt and they ended up dying down there. Well, as we mentioned Abraham, he made that same choice. But notice this, when we step outside of what God wants for us and we step outside of God’s will, it doesn’t only affect our individual life. It affects other lives. It has repercussions even on our family. We certainly see that with Lot. No question at all with his family. One might argue, well, I mean, we’re not told that Milan and explicitly told that Milan, Chile, and the limalac all died because of the judgment of God. No, we’re not explicitly told that. But it seems that God, I wonder what God had preserved their lives if they had not gone down there. But that was what happened. And Naomi was left to pick up the pieces. Naomi was left with the broken hearts. She was left with two daughters in law who also had broken hearts because of their spouses passing. However, they passed. We don’t know how that happened, but the point was that they did die. Or does it think it’s necessary for us to know how they died? But in limalac, we know he was responsible for leaving, making the decision to leave. But now it was Naomi’s decision. What is she going to do? What is she going to do with what hand she’s been dealt? What Lot has been cast in her lap? What is she going to do with? How is she going to respond to these very difficult circumstances? She has no husband now. She has no sons to provide for her. These are three women here. And they don’t have any land. They don’t have a husband. They don’t, they’re in a bad place in one sense. They’re going to have to find some help. She was discouraged. She was despondent. She was even bitter because of what was happening. The more she thought on it, the more bitter she became, probably, as she thought on the hand the Lord had dealt her in this situation. She viewed herself as already good as dead. I can’t have any more children. If I was to have children, even tonight, I was to conceive. Would you wait those years to marry this, you know, when this boy grows up? She couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. She couldn’t see the hope in this situation. And she was really, really even felt doubly as bad because her heart was breaking for her daughters-in-law, as well as for her own self.

We see that Orpa responded initially weeping with Ruth, didn’t she? She responded initially by weeping and saying, ‘We’re not going to leave you. We’re going to go with you, all these kinds of things.’ But after Naomi spoke to her, and notice this, Naomi is encouraging her. Naomi is not walking with the Lord like she ought to hear it. And because of her bitterness of her own heart, she gives unwise counsel, doesn’t she? She does not counsel Orpa correctly or or Ruth, for that matter. She encourages them both to go back to their gods and their people. No. That’s not what you’re supposed to be telling them. You’re supposed to be saying, ‘I know the Lord is given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We’re going to go back to the house of bread and we’re going to trust the Lord to provide. Will you come with me?’ That’s what she should have said, probably given the circumstances as we look at this, would we have done any better? Probably not. Except by God’s grace, the only way we could do any better. But it would be, we notice here that after Naomi pleads with her to go back, she continues to weep and she shows affection for her mother-in-law, but she agrees that she will go back. She’s sort of resigned to the horizontal view of things. Yeah, you’re right, mom. I guess it will be hard to get married if I go with you. So I guess I’ll have to go back to my people. I’ll go back and find another husband. I’ll take that route and she went back and when Ruth, when they only speaks to Ruth, she says, ‘Well, you know, Sister-in-law, she’s going back to her people and her gods. Why don’t you go back to?’ But Ruth has a different response as we notice here. Let’s look back in the text. In verse 15, she said, ‘Behold, by Sister-in-law is going back into her people and into her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law.’ And Ruth said, ‘And treat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee, for wither thou goest, I will go. And where thou logest, I will launch thy people shall be my people and thy God my God. Where thou dost will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me and more also with the death, part thee and me.’ Something about Ruth is that she sees the Lord in all of this, doesn’t she? She, we might even say, this confession of her mouth was actually became the evidence of her conversion to trust in the God of Israel. Was it at that very moment or was it just now that it came out of her mouth? But the point is that she was obviously, there was nothing for her to trust in but the Lord God of Israel because Naomi was discouraging her from going back. She didn’t have a good example in Orpah, her sister-in-law because she was going back. There’s no other explanation for this. She recognizes that God would be able to do so to her and more if she did not go with her mother-in-law Naomi. She says, I’m not going to go back to my people and my God, my God, I’m going to go with you and your God will be my God and your people will be my people. Why you die, I will die. I am committed not only to you but to your God. I believe he’s the true God in so many words is what she’s saying here and I’m going to go with you. I’m not going to go back to my people. You can, it’s almost like this is not up for negotiation. This is not up for dispute. I’m going. There was a change in her heart. There was a mercy of God. Isn’t it amazing how God uses such unassuming and people and things and small and weak and base things to bring about His purposes? God used Ruth to bring Naomi, a woman who had known the Lord and had walked with the Lord back to ultimately Himself in that fellowship that she ought to be in.

The trial of our faith is meant to produce patience in us. It’s meant to cause us to turn to the Lord, not to shut him out, not to grow hard toward him. Even when God sent those plagues upon Egypt, He is still being merciful in that to try to get people to turn to him but we noticed that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Became more bitter but made the trials, we might say it this way, made the trials of life not make us bitter but make us better because we know that the sovereign loving hand of God is behind those trials that He’s bringing to our lives. That’s the only way that we can make sense of it and sometimes we can’t make sense of it. I’m sure it’s hard for Joe to make sense, Joe Savino, to make sense of his father’s passing at this moment. We pray for that family, pray for all these families that we know of that are going through very difficult circumstances at this time but we pray that their eyes will turn to the Lord in the midst of the difficulty because that’s the only hope. That’s where our hope is found is in the Lord. Naomi said when she went back to Bethlehem, what did she say to the women who spoke with her? She said in verse number they asked, ‘Is this Naomi?’ And she said unto them, ‘Call me not Naomi.’ What is Naomi means pleasant? Naomi means beautiful. Don’t call me pleasant. Don’t call me beautiful. The curse of God is upon me. Call me bitter. Call me Mara because that’s the true commentary of how I feel and what my circumstances are right now. That is who I am. Call me Mara. You know, we tend to, we have this tendency when we’re going through spiritually a low place to say, ‘I don’t want anybody to talk to me. I don’t want to, I don’t want to see anybody. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just want to have a little pity party. I want to be bitter right now. That’s not the way we need to be. In God’s mercy, Naomi was coming back to the place where she needed to be, although her heart wasn’t in the right place yet. She was geographically back in the location that God wanted her to be in. Her heart was not hardened and pride like in the same way that Nebuchadnezzar’s was lifted up and pride. Look at me. No, she was in despondency and bitterness of heart because of she felt that life was worth worse than useless at this point and she was better dead. Like Job felt at times. ‘Cursed be the day that I was born,’ he said in so many words. But why was she bitter is because she had a different outcome in mind than what God allowed to happen. She had a different plan than what God’s plan was and God’s plan turned her plans on their head. And now what am I going to do? How am I going to survive?

What those of us who have lost loved ones close to us know that it does change the way you look at things. It changes the way you look at experiences that you’ve had in the past. But the sovereign God appointed this. We can’t always understand why he does what he does, when he does it, but we must trust that he does all things well. The hardening of the heart comes when I think I’ve given the illustration before. Imagine you’re trying to give medicine that doesn’t taste so good to a child and they pull that neck back and they stiffen up and they say, ‘I don’t want any of that.’ No. Well, Israel was like that. They were stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart. The scripture says they didn’t want that. They were resisting the Holy Spirit. They were resisting God’s dealings with them. And that’s where the hardening of the heart comes in. We recoil when God is trying to speak to us and we just want to think the way we want to think about it. And we make life more difficult in ourselves because we build a wall around ourselves and we say, ‘This is the way I want to do things.’ And we become stubborn. Maybe we can say, ‘Well, from a natural man perspective, I have reason to be upset. I have reason to be bitter about this.’ But look at Ruth. She’s coming from a Moabitis background. She’s coming from a nation that knew not the true God and what is her response. She’s lost a husband, she’s lost a father-in-law, she’s lost a brother-in-law. Her response is that she sees God in this. She sees the hand of God. She sees that God is dealing with her. And as Christians, we know that all things do work together for good. Do we trust that? When our heart is hard, sometimes we don’t want to really meditate. It’s hard to meditate on God’s truth when we have a hard heart. We tend to be more quick to hear bad news, don’t we? Do you hear about how bad this thing is over here? Oh, it’s just getting worse all the time. That’s how we tend to be, isn’t it? Just everything is bad. Complain, complain, complain. We gravitate towards the negative rather than looking for the hand of God in these things. Remember the two on the road to Emmaus? What were they doing? They were listening to the common reports. Well, he’s dead now. Jesus, he thought he was really something, but he’s dead. He’s in that grave over there. And that tomb and so much for all those fair promises he made. The two on the road to Emmaus were downcast because they heard the reports. They saw the crucifixion and they said, we thought he was going to save Israel, but they were just mumbling and grumbling and moaning and sighing on their way back to Emmaus. And there was the Lord right there, but their eyes were, their eyes were shut, and they couldn’t see him. He was right there with them, but they didn’t realize that he was with them because they were walking by sight and not by faith. And what did the Lord say to them? He said, oh fools and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken and written. Even James tells us we ought to be slow to wrath, slow to not slow to believe. We need to be swift to hear, right? Swift quick quick quick in the trial and that’s in the context of when the trials of their faith come. Swift to hear slow to speak, slow to wrath because the tendency is for us to get upset. When we get hardened hearts, we get upset and we lose sight of the Lord and we stop hearing what he’s saying to us and we start just complaining and saying, oh no, this is terrible and this is this. No, we need not to lash out and retaliate. We need not to become bitter and despondent. We need to give place to wrath, make room for God’s wrath in situations where it is a terrible situation. God’s will was not for a semi and leave I to go and kill those men who raped. The rape their sister, Dinah, we notice that this is not God’s plan. The wrath of man never works the righteousness of God. Uncontrolled anger is not God’s way. God wants us to receive the word, the seed into good ground that may bring forth fruit, 30, 60, 100 fold. Remember the disciples when they were on that boat on the Sea of Galilee, they quickly forgot the miracle of the bread, the loaves when they saw the storm on the Sea of Galilee and it says their hearts were hardened, their hearts were hardened because faith comes by hearing, doesn’t it? Hearing by the word of God, Israel.

We told the girls in our Bible class this past week, we’ve been going through the book of Hebrews now and there’s a promise in the Old Testament that Israel would come into the land of promise, right? And it says the word not being mixed in faith with them that heard it, they came short, at least that first generation came short of the promise rests the land of rest, but it says there is a rest reserved to the people of God. What is that rest? It’s a rest of ceasing from our own efforts and resting in God’s grace and his promises and his strength, right? Trust and obey, there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. When our hearts are hard, we say things, we think things, we do things that do not glorify God and do not edify others, don’t we? We say things that will actually hurt other people in their walk with the word. We don’t edify that, we tear it out. So we’ve got to walk by faith, not by sight, we’ve got to stay in God’s word and hear what the Spirit is saying to us in his word. We need to pray that God would open our eyes and show us wonderful things out of his law. We need in a manner of speaking, we need to get to the house of bread right here where we can be fed, right? We’ve got to get in the word and be fed, even when, especially when we don’t feel like it, we need to get on our knees in prayer and we need to be in God’s word. If we wait for feelings to come, if we wait for everything to the storm to pass, then where is our faith, right? We need to be in God’s word and stay in God’s words. Even when all seems to be crashing down around us, we need to turn around and ask the Lord to forgive us of our thinking. Naomi, Naomi went back, we can say that about her, she went back because she, well, she had heard that there was bread in the land. But notice that Boaz never left. Boaz stayed. God took care of him, didn’t he? God took care of Boaz. He didn’t, he didn’t go to Moab. God will provide a way. God will make a way, but we got to trust him. We’ve got to trust him. As we remember and meditate on God’s word and turn back to the house of bread, our hearts will begin to burn within us. Isn’t that when the two on the road to Emmaus? When the Lord broke the bread of life, he opened the Word, opened the Scriptures to them, and their eyes were opened. There are realities and precious things waiting for those who have tender hearts and open eyes to the Lord. May we not have hardened hearts, folks. If we have a hardened heart of our, we are hardening our hearts, turn back to the house of bread, turn back to the Lord with all your hearts, and he will fill you with good things. He fills the hungry with good things, doesn’t he? He sends the rich, the proud. Empty. Away empty. Satan wants to choke the Word in us, but God wants to bless us. And I think of what we read in Ruth chapter 4, looking at Ruth chapter 4 verse 14, ‘And the women said unto Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel, and he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age, for thy daughter in law which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons hath borne him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it.” The Lord restores our souls, doesn’t he? He’s the restorer of our life. He’s the one that creates in us a clean heart, renews a right spirit. He’s the one that fills us with good things in ourselves. We are empty in ourselves. We are bitter in ourselves. We are proud in ourselves. We are complainers. That’s why we need to be filled with the goodness of the Lord. Turn to the Lord with all your heart, and he will bless. He will tenderize your heart. He will take away the stony hardness of the heart and put that tender heart of flesh there within us. May God help us to be like a roof, and even to find the blessing that comes that Naomi experienced that he is the restorer of our life and the nourisher of our old age.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for these truths. Bethlehem was a and is a literal historical place. This lady Naomi was a real just flesh and blood as we are, a real historical sister that lived in the past. She faced real heartache and break with the loss of her husband and her sons. She was in a real dilemma and did not know what to do, did not know that there was any hope left for her, but in your great mercy you condescended to send unlikely sources into her life that would help her in the turning her back to yourself. Lord, how many times do you use children even to be a rebuke to us? You use our own children to teach us the need for a tender heart, to show us that our own hearts are becoming hardened. Lord, you use people who have lost everything to be a rebuke to us when we tend to complain about things that happen to us in our lives. Lord, help us to realize how grateful we should be and how blessed we are to be called your children. If you would take away everything that we have, Lord, our blessed assurance and our relationship with our Savior cannot be taken away from us. We thank you for that, Lord, and we pray that you’ll help us, help us to leave a legacy of trusting God to our children, to our grandchildren, to those that will come after us, help us to point by our lives to the sufficiency and strength of our Savior. May others be able to see that by thy hand we are fed, we receive our daily bread, and we are nothing without our God. We can do all things through Christ, though, the one who strengthens us, help us as we go forward. Lord, may we move forward with tender hearts, not hard ones. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.