Choices

Chapter 3 - Choices
Ruth 1:11-17

Choices - Remembering the Promise

God's Story

God had already written His story. He crossed the line He had drawn, grafting in a strange people into His promise. She was a Gentile, a Moabite, an enemy to His people. How did anyone know that one day, when He laid His only Son, the Son of God, in the grave,  through His death, He would bring two nations together. The Gentile and the Jew. He Himself became their peace, made one and broke down the middle wall of separation. (Eph 2:14)

"That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ..." Ephesians l:10

""...you should not be ignorant of this mysteyr, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." Romans 11:25

"Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." Romans 9:33

Israel's Story

Naomi sat empty hearted staring at the stones that covered the bodies of her loved ones. She had lain two sons and a husband in the ground in a strange land. Elimelech's line had come to any end. Israel slumped over her last hope, her sons. Surely they would bring her home to her land. She had been termed forsaken, desolate. (Isaiah 62:4) She was left for a period of time until the fullness of the Gentiles.  

Ruth's Story

I too am a forsaken woman. I hope no hope outside of the family I chose ten years before. I learned about their God, listened to their story and also turned away from my country Moab's god, Chemosh. I live in my country, but I am one without a country. 

Faith Lessons

There are choices to be made. Maybe the choice had been made ten years earlier when Ruth became the wife of Mahlon. Now he was dead and she was alone.

Would you act any differently if your husband lived or died?

Have you been reconciled to your choices you made?

Can you see ahead and trust something that could or could not be?

Principles in Relationships:

What can you do to make for a peaceable relationship between you and your spouse?

What if your choice meant leaving your own family and country? Could you do it?

How important is your faith? Is anyone more important than your relationship with God?

If so, who and why?

Can you continue to walk with some one who is not equal to your faith?

Are they turning their back on you or are you turning your back on them?

(Ruth means friend, Orpah means hind, back or stubborn.)

When we choose God, do we choose His family, Israel?

How do we see Israel's history? Can we make it ours and be a Gentile?

Chain of Events:

Ruth is a picture of the Church, the bride, the New Testament and redemption. Naomi, representing, Israel, is a picture of the old order passing away, the law fulfilled in Christ, which brought the disposition of grace.  

22: Corinthians 3:7-18 The passing away of the old order. What was written on stone now is written on hearts. What was glorious passed away for the ministry of the Spirit which was more glorious.

Ruth is the contemporary of Judges. Her story came about 1200 Bc. Judges extended over 350 years, from 1375 to 1050 Bc.  

Judges 2 is a miniature of the book of Judges. There were seven cycles of the same pattern that occurred in Judges. Five step cycle. 1. sin, 2. servitude, 3. supplication,  4. salvation, 5. silence.

 It is also termed as l. rebellion, 2. retribution, 3. repentance, 4. restoration, 5. rest  

 In Judges Chapters 16-21 comes before Chapters 3-15. It is not totally in chronological order.

Choices

Each has a choice

no matter how large or small,

Faith and courage is not a popular vote

reasoning and fear will seek its own,

Names speak of their owners

Ruth as friend

Orpah her back is shown

Naomi once pleasant and full,

Mara, now bitter and alone, Each will choose

as destiny will be determined

purpose will finish its course.

Hinges of choice will swing the door

open or shut

recording this moment as history

a small choice made

an entire life will find its course.

The Story

Choices

Chapter three

Ruth 1:11-18

Choices

Chapter three

Ruth 1:11-18

Ruth now stared into her husband’s sick eyes. Her husband was dying and had been for a long time. Her heart and mind went back ten years before, when she saw him for the first time.

He was such a gentle man, a caring man and a writer. She remembered that first night when the two parties meet at the Place of Refuge. Fear was among them. They could not trust each other; history between them was too violent from the past.

Ruth remembered that first long look when Mahlon looked up from his writing and stared at her. He was reading her eyes. “What was he looking for in my eyes?” Ruth questioned.

She still remembered his response, “It’s all about the stones.” 

Ruth didn’t blame anyone for their mistrust. That night when they first encountered Naomi and her husband and sons, none of them knew what to expect.

Her people were a violent people, greedy, self-serving and fighters. Mahlon’s people were not warriors, they didn’t know how to defend themselves. She had heard rumors when the Israelites came through Moab, just right after Israel crossed the Red Sea. Her people refused passage for the Israelites to pass through their country. That was over six hundred years ago, and they were still enemies. Their necks were still stiff towards each other.

Her people did not meet God’s chosen people with bread and water on the road when they came out of Egypt and also the Moabite King hired Balaam the son of Beor to curse his own people. (Deuteronomy 23:3,4)

Israel’s God had turned His back on Moab and Ammon and blessed His people because their God loved them. Her people’s god, Chemosh was as cruel as the people who worshipped him. He desired the sacrifice of their children, and the word “love” didn’t exist in a god made of stone.

Ruth continued to suck out the memories of the life of those days with Mahlon; he wrote upon parchment at night and read his writings to everyone who sat around the fire. He wrote about the Red Sea and how his people crossed over it on dry ground into the wilderness.

He wrote about Moses and Joshua. Moses led them through the hot burning wilderness. It still holds dry bones as evidence to that very day. Moses only saw Canaan from across the Jordan.

The Jordan River divided lands. It was not the waters that held them back that could not be crossed but boundaries in their hearts. They refused to believe and their God refused them from moving forward.

Mahlon had taken leadership after Elimelech’s death. Naomi grieved herself into a place of no return. Naomi was once a confident woman, she was the strength of her husband, but without Elimelech, Naomi had no fight left in her and no confidence.

She always thought they would return to their homeland, but not this way. Without her husband and two sons, she had no claim on the property left behind. She would go back as a beggar and a widow.  

Mahlon respected his mother’s grief. He felt her pain as deeply as a poet would. He wrote his and his mother’s feelings which he shared only with Ruth. Ruth began to understand the deep entrenched faith in a God who had promised them many things. He is a God who keeps His promises, Ruth pondered. 

Ruth’s sister Orpah stayed behind with Ruth when they first met at the crossing of Refuge. Ruth had given herself as surety as one to protect this wandering family. She knew her country and she knew her people. Orpah stayed only because of Ruth.

As time, Ruth and Mahlon came to be husband and wife. Their relationship was gentle and respectful. Their conversations were rich and deep of his forefathers and what they left behind. She knew the love of a gentle man who was like the God he worshipped.

Chilion and Orpah had a different kind of relationship. He was a complainer and refused to be comforted. Orpah was stubborn and was always looking back to her own people. She never wanted her current situation and stubbornly fought for her past. She stayed only because of Ruth but soon time would force her to think for herself.

Chilion died early, probably out of his own bitterness. It ate at him and Orpah continued to strive with him until he took his final breath.

Over the years Ruth served Naomi in her pain and now she was looking at the man she loved, who made her life rich. He taught her to understand his family’s traditions. She was saying goodbye to him. She reached down and kissed his cold lips. His hallow cheeks showed years of suffering of  a fragile body. Her fingers traced the lines on his face. All she had left was his writings. They had spoken of his heart and his wish to return to his homeland. She remembered the story about the stone in Gilgal. One day she might possibly see it.

Again stones were laid upon another one of Israel’s sons.

Naomi, Ruth and Orpah sat, staring into the distance. Orpah was facing Moab and Naomi and Ruth faced the Jordan. Ruth would have to be the strong one. Naomi had little life in her. Her grief had eaten away at her; Orpah’s bitterness ate away at her cold heart.

Naomi said quietly, “I have nothing for you. You need to return to your people and marry someone from Moab. You will find rest there.”

“We have been a part of your family all these years, my own people turned away from me when I denied their god,” Ruth refused Naomi’s offer. “We will go with you.”

“Turn back, my daughters, there is no seed in my womb that you might have a husband. I have nothing to go home to.  The hand of the Lord has gone out against me.”

The two sisters embraced each other. Ruth knew what she must do and Orpah knew she couldn’t go on.

And 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 will be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Naomi stopped speaking. She knew Ruth was determined to stay with her and she was secretly glad. She also knew the hard trip ahead and possibly the asterisking chide of her countrymen. But it was still her homeland, it was where she belonged.  

Choices

Workbook questions– Chapter 3

1.     Why do you think Ruth was so determined to follow Naomi? _________

2.     Do you think it was hard for Orpah to go back to her people and leave Ruth? ______________________________________________________

3.     Do you think there was a risk with either choice? __________________

4.     Could Ruth have gone without a risk of how it was going to be? Moab was feared and hated by Naomi’s people in Canaan. They didn’t know Ruth and didn’t know Ruth’s intentions. 

5.     There was no promise of anything. No land, no seed, no home, no security. Why was she going with Naomi? __________________________

6.     Would you have gone if you were in a place as Ruth? _______________

7.     Could Ruth have changed her mind if she didn’t like the way it was going in Bethlehem? _____________________________________________