August 14, 2025 - Ruth 1:20,21 - "Bethlehem Bound: Bitter and Broken"

Ruth 1:20,21

"And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty 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?"

To read this story to this point, and looking at Naomi and Ruth that are now trudging their way back to Bethlehem as the world looks on, the world might say as they do today, "How could such bad things happen to such good people?" That's how the world reasons. But when we who are the LORD's consider who we are by nature, the LORD having shown us that we're nothing but rebellious, wretched sinners, the better question is: "Why does anything good happen to such wretched sinners as we are?" If the LORD exercises in any way His sovereign hand to chasten or afflict or even bring any sinner into condemnation, like we read in Job 1, may we not charge God foolishly or say as the wicked say, "Why has God done so? Why has He exercised His hand so?"

None are innocent. That is a term that the world uses, and they ask, "How could it be that so many innocent people died?" Truthfully, there has never been an innocent person who has died other than the LORD Jesus Christ, and even more than innocent, He was righteous. But the reason He died was not for any sin in Him because the wages of sin is death. He died as a judgment, the wages of sin being laid on Him. It wasn't sin in Him. Isaiah in Isaiah 53:6 said that, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." He didn't infuse it in Him, as some would say, that He had to become what we are so we become what He is. No, He identified with such wretched sinners as we are bearing that sin in righteousness and justice. He died the Just One for the unjust. But apart from the LORD Jesus Christ having paid that sin debt, there isn't a human being that has ever walked the face of this earth where it could be said that they died in innocence. "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not" (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

We see in this story that God is not only all-knowing and all-wise, but also, He's directing. He is directing even in the chastening of His children. Those corrections may not seem pleasant for the moment, but if we're the LORD's, then every chastening, just like here, is a mercy. It all comes back to the cross. Before the cross, God was forbearing with those such as Naomi and Ruth. He did not put their sin to their charge. He withheld his hand from condemning them with the rest. Consider how Moab was a cursed nation (Deuteronomy 23:3), so why was grace shown to Ruth? Of these in Israel, why Naomi? That was the LORD's hand of mercy and Grace. This chastening was not out of wrath but out of love.

Ruth and Naomi would never have recognized their need for Boaz had not God stripped them of everything. When they returned, they possessed nothing. If you wonder why God chastens us, it is because this flesh—so prideful in its fallen state—will not bow. Therefore, the LORD graciously removes every prop on which we lean. Stop and think: when do you most deeply feel your need for the LORD Jesus Christ, of which Boaz was a type? Is it not when He brings you so low through some affliction that you can scarcely breathe? You cannot turn to the right or the left. It feels as though, if the LORD kept His hand heavy upon you, you would suffocate and die. Yet, what does all of this accomplish? Your cries begin to rise to the LORD.

That's what Job said, Neither is there any daysman, betwixt us, that might lay His hand upon us both" (Job 9:33). Consider God's holiness and Who He is. We need a Mediator to put His Hand on God, but we also need a merciful God to put His Hand on us before we die.

When Naomi says "bitter," it means how she perceived herself as repentant, and testified saying, "The LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me." She acknowledged that God was just in afflicting her. That's what she was confessing about the LORD. It's taking sides with God against yourself, and until you've laid down your arms, whatever that weapon is, you've not bowed. You’re still a rebel, but the LORD brings His own to bow in His time, and He does it in grace and mercy.