Series: Ruth

Title:In the Beginning of the Barley Harvest

Text: Ruth 1: 19-22

Date: July 10, 2016

Place: SGBC, New Jersey

Naomi was a true believer.

  • She was once a woman of wealth and influence in Bethlehem.
  • But due to a famine, she left God’s place of worship with her husband and her two sons.
  • They went to a land of idolatry.

Now, after ten years’, Naomi is returning from Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth.

Ruth 1: 19: So they two 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 this Naomi? 20: And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. 21: 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? 22: 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.

As Naomi walked down the streets of Bethlehem-Judah, the whole town gathered round astonished.

  • They said to one another, “Is this Naomi?”

Proposition: Sin changes man so deeply that only God can save us.

I. FIRST, IN NAOMI WE SEE A PICTURE OF THE FALL OF THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE IN ADAM—Ruth 1: 19:…they said, Is this Naomi? 20: And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, [Pleasant]call me Mara: [Bitterness]…21: I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty:…

A. God made Adam after his own image, after his own likeness.

1. Adam was pleasant and full.

  • Perfectly righteous
  • His heart was pure, undefiled.
  • He was full of wisdom.
  • He was spiritual and strong.
  • He had communion with God

2. But when Adam disobeyed God he became bitterness and empty—

  • Unrighteous before the law
  • Impure, defiled in heart
  • Spiritual dead, he became carnal
  • Instead of wise, he became ignorant of God
  • Instead of strong, he became weak
  • Lost all communion and fellowship with God—his mind was enmity against God.
  • And all his seed—you and me—suffered the same spiritual death in Adam and with Adam in us.

Rom 5: 12: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

3. When God made Adam in his image, God said, “Good!” Out of Adam’s heart proceeded good:

Php 4:8…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report;

4. After the fall, sin defiled his heart:

Matthew 15: 19: out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

Ge 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

App. Look at us now. Murdering one another, committing adultery against God and against one another, stealing God’s glory and from one another, lying against God and against man, blasphemously taking God’s name in vain, changing the gospel to fit sinful man. Is this what God made? Is that what God pronounced “Good?”

Illustration: Theycould hardly recognize Naomi.

  • She left rich, beautiful and pleasant.Now, she’s poor, bitter and empty. They whispered, “Is this Naomi?”
  • We were rich, beautiful, and pleasant. Now we are poor, bitter and empty. We can only say about our sin-nature is “Is this Adam? Is this the one created in God’s image?” No, we lost God’s image.

B. In order to save us from spiritual death, we must be born of God the Holy Spirit, recreated in God’s image. And God gets all the glory for the work and we get none.

Col 3:10…the new man,…is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

2Co 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even asby the Spirit of the Lord.

Before we leave this point, be sure to understand: When a sanctified child of God turns to our will rather than walking after God’s will—it is the same as what Adam did in the garden and it results in a similar fall.

  • When we turn to our way rather than resting in Christ the Way—the child of God always suffers like Naomi suffered.
  • When a child of God turns to our wisdom rather than following Christ our Wisdom—the child of God is sure to lose our fullness and temporarily become empty.
  • There is no difference in Adam disobeying God in the garden and our disobeying God by turning from Christ.
  • “Sin is the transgression of the law”—Adam’s law was not to eat the fruit of that one tree; the believer’s law is to believe on Christ and love one another.

II. SECONDLY, WE SEE OUR ONLY WAY TO BE SAVED FROM OUR SINS IS FOR GOD TO TURN US FROM OUR WAY—Notice, Naomi attributed this work to God alone—Ruth 1: 20: And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. 21: 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?

A. God is the Almighty.

1. God is able to save those he chose by his free grace.

  • The sinner God will save cannot prohibit God from saving them.
  • No evil powers, no sinner, not even the devil, can prohibit God from saving his child.

App. All whom God chose to save, God shall save and shall lose none.

1Sa 2:9 He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.

Ps 37:28 For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.

Joh 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

B. But in order to save us from our sins, God’s hand will be bitter toward us—Ruth 1: 20…the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

App. Brethren, when God chastens, he means to correct; and his chastening rod always has its intended effect (Heb. 12:5-12).

1. God will empty his child—Ruth 1:21 I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty:

  • Emptied of every false refuge
  • Emptied of all self-righteousness and self-holiness
  • Emptied of all self-made ways and wisdom
  • In short, emptied of trusting self.

App. The only reason a sinner will not come to Christ begging mercy is because he is full of himself so that he does not think he needs to be saved. By not coming to Christ and confessing his nothingness, he is saying, “I am somebody!” So God must empty us.

2. God will deal bitterly with us by testifying against us—Ruth 1: 21…seeing the LORD hath testified against me,…

  • God sent someone declaring the good news to her that God had visited his people at Bethlehem giving them bread.
  • Through the gospel, God testifies against us.
  • She thought she could provide herself bread—God provided the Bread.
  • She thought she would find bread in Moab—God provided Bread in Bethlehem—the house of Bread.
  • She thought she was right in going her way—God testified that not one work of her hands had prospered but had all taken her further away from God.

App. Before God makes us hear of Christ, God will testify against all our works and all our vain ways.

3. God will deal bitterly with his child by afflicting us—Ruth 1: 21…and the Almighty hath afflicted me?

  • God stripped her of everything dear to her
  • Her husband, her sons, her other daughter-in-law
  • He hedged up her way with thorns
  • Here she stands in her tattered rags, all a mess

C. But by all this, she sees now sees who she is and she sees who God is. She called herself “Mara—bitterness” She called God “Almighty!”

1. She was not complaining about the Lord’s dealings with her (vv. 20-21).

  • She was subdued and resigned to the will of God.
  • She spoke honestly about herself and about God.

2. It was by God’s grace alone that she was now brought home--the LORD hath brought me home

App. The only remedy for our lost, ruined condition is God’s saving, irresistible, grace. When Naomi had lost everything by God stripping her, he then made her return to Bethlehem, to her God and his people. Even so, sinners who have lost everything in Adam must return to the Lord God by faith in Christ Jesus only by the grace of God.

III. LASTLY, WE SEE IN WHOM WE COME INTO GOD’S HOUSE—Ruth 1:22 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 [to God’s house of bread]in the beginning of barley harvest. [in Christ.]

A. She “returned”, “returned out of the country of Moab”—

1. Repentance is returning,

  • Returning out of the country of idolatry.
  • Out of the country of self.
  • Out of the country of our own works

B. And with repentance, comes faith in Christ—we see faith in Christ typified here.

1. “They came to Bethlehem-Judah”—

  • To God’s house of bread,
  • To God’s house of praise—
  • The birthplace of Christ

2. “They came inthe beginning of barley harvest”—this is very, very significant—it pictures us coming into God’s house through faith in Christ

3. One translation says it was on the “day of the feast of Passover.”—Christ is our Passover Lamb.

  • To deliver Israel out of bondage, the judgment of God fell upon every house in Egypt and slew the firstborn.
  • But every household in Israel sacrificed a paschal lamb. The blood of the lamb was put upon the door of every house. God looked on the blood and passed over the house where blood was found.
  • The first born in their houses died in the lamb. That slain paschal lamb represented Christ our Passover, who was sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5;7), by whose blood we are saved.

3. But our translation says it was “the beginning of barley harvest”.Sunday after the Passover was the Feast of Firstfruits (vv. 9-11)

  • On Sunday after the Passover, Israel brought a handful of the firstfruits of their harvest, to the priest andthe priest waved it before the Lord—“to be accepted for you.” (Lev 23: 10-11)
  • By this they confessedevery fruit produced was of the Lord, not of their hands, and that it belongs to the Lord.

Be sure to get the meaning:

  • It was on this day, “the Sunday after the Passover”, “the day after the Sabbath”, that our Lord Jesus Christ arose from the grave and became the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20-23).
  • When he arose all his people arose in him, declaring that all his elect scattered in the field—this world—by virtue of his redeeming blood—is now ripe for harvest.
  • Every chosen, redeemed child of God shall be born again at God’s appointed time by virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection as their Substitute.
  • We become a kind of firstfruit unto God (James 1:18). So we come giving ourselves to Christ our Priest, and he waves us before the Lord, confessing that we are God’s work alone and we belong to him.
  • This is the first resurrection which guarantees we shall have part in the second (Rev. 20:6).

App. That is what we have pictured so beautifully here. They came into Bethlehem—God’s house of bread—in the beginning of barley harvest—through faith in Christ.

  • We fell in Adam and became completely ruined in Adam.
  • Only by the saving hand of God’s grace we are shown what we are, and given repentance from us and faith in Christ.
  • We come into God’s house through faith in Christ, confessingGod did all the work to make us accepted of God, and we are the firstfruits unto God and belong to God.

Amen!