May 14, 2025 • 53 mins
Podcast Title: The Legacy Bible Podcast – Episode 61 Title: The Perfect Love of a Mother: Lessons from Ruth
Episode Description: In this heartfelt episode, originally preached on May 20, 1990, Pastor Chuck Rains shares profound insights into the enduring and sacrificial love of a mother, as illustrated in the Book of Ruth. Though technically the third part in a series on motherhood, this message stands powerfully on its own, diving into Naomi and Ruth's relationship as a model of spiritual and maternal love. With tenderness and biblical depth, Pastor Rains explores how godly love is perfected through trust in the Lord, even in the face of trials, loss, and uncertain futures.
Whether you're a mother, daughter, or simply someone reflecting on family and faith, this episode will encourage you to understand love not just as emotion, but as a deliberate, sacrificial commitment rooted in God's design.
Show Notes:
- Host: Marcus Onate
- Speaker: Reverend Chuck Rains
- Original Sermon Date: May 20, 1990
- Scripture Focus: Book of Ruth
Key Themes and Topics:
- The spiritual significance of Naomi and Ruth’s relationship
- How trials refine and reveal the depth of a mother’s love
- Naomi's sacrificial guidance and Ruth's committed loyalty
- God's providence through obedience and relational love
- Practical insights into how mothers and children can reflect God’s love in their choices
Takeaways:
- Love is more than feeling—it is action, commitment, and trust in God.
- God honors sacrificial love and obedience, even when the future is unclear.
- The legacy of faith and love can extend far beyond our own lives, as seen in Ruth becoming part of Christ’s lineage.
Mentioned Resources:
- Deuteronomy 7:3, 23:3 (regarding Moabites and God's law)
- Matthew 1 (genealogy of Jesus including Ruth)
- Hebrews 12 (discipline and righteousness)
Call to Action: Visit www.legacybiblepodcast.com to listen to more sermons and explore the video version on YouTube.
Any Questions or comments ? You can contact us at legacybiblepodcast@gmail.com
Thanks for Listening
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello friends and welcome or welcome back.
(00:15):
Of course, this is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you will find legacy lessons
and legacy audio from the tape archives of the Fellowship Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois.
By all lessons taught by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Rains, and I am your host, Marcus
(00:37):
Onate.
And today I'm going to be bringing to you another one from our collection.
This one is, I think I mentioned last week, but being Mother's Day, so that one was
Mother's Love, which is part one.
Well, I do not have part two, at least not yet.
I haven't found it, but this one is actually part three.
(01:00):
So we have part two missing, so we go from one to part three on a Mother's Love.
And this one is titled, The Perfect Love of a Mother, Lessons from the Book of Ruth.
It was originally preached on May 20, 1990, May 20, 1990.
(01:24):
By our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Rains, at the Fellowship Bible Church, probably the
morning service.
So let's get right into it and take it away, Pastor.
I do want you to turn to the Book of Ruth with me.
I have to admit to you that my study with you in the Book of Ruth was not planned two
(01:52):
or three weeks ago when I told you we were going to have a two-part series, because this
is part three.
In the study of a Mother's Love, I haven't really attempted for some years to go back
and talk of these things.
And I believe God's helped me through the seasoning of that time to kind of come and
(02:17):
let him speak in a fresh way.
This is a story about love, but I think I'd like to turn the emphasis where we can to
the love that God shows us here that comes from a mother to a daughter and from a daughter
to a mother.
(02:40):
This is a story, really, of motherhood when we come to the Book of Ruth, a story about
motherhood's joys and sorrows.
And it's also a story about the underlying strength of motherhood and that underlying
strength is love.
(03:01):
Kind of how that love is made perfect through complete trust in the Lord.
The world can know the love of motherhood and the strength of that love, but they can't
know the perfect working of that love and its strength without trusting in the Lord.
There just isn't any perfecting of that love.
(03:24):
It's wonderful in the Word of God.
We can see how a mother's love can be brought to be all that it should be, all that it can
be.
Well, this is a story from the Book of Ruth about that kind of love.
First in a story, there's a little bit of joy.
(03:45):
If you have the Book of Ruth open and we're in the first chapter, there's a story about
a man and a woman.
And the first bit of joy that enters the story is this, they were married.
They were married.
When a man and woman get married, it's a time for joy.
(04:09):
Wouldn't it be awful if a man and woman were coming together and they were just angry about
it, all upset and hurt that they would have to get married?
Wouldn't it be terrible to start out that way?
Some marriages end up that way, but they shouldn't start out that way.
And I'm sure with this man and this woman in this book, the Lord had given them all love
(04:34):
for each other and I'm sure they stepped into marriage together that they fully expected
to have a life filled with that joy.
It started that way.
By the way, the man's name was Elimalek and Elimalek has a special meaning.
The meaning is, my God is king.
(04:59):
The wonderful story from the Book of Ruth about the meanings of the names in the book,
but it starts right here with a man with such a strong name.
My God is king.
A woman can take trust in that.
A woman can take refuge in a man whose God is king.
(05:22):
If a man will let the Lord Jesus be his head, his authority, his strength, a woman can
take rest in that, confidence in that, joy in that, because you see, it allows her heart
to express itself freely to the Lord and with her husband.
Now if a man won't do that, there's this great struggle that's set up in a woman's
(05:46):
heart.
She needs to trust under the cover of her husband, under the headship of her husband.
She needs to have that confidence and joy in that union, but this man gave it.
He gave it because God, his God, was king.
(06:07):
And then the woman's name, Naomi, also tells us a wonderful thing about her, maybe her
personality.
Her name is Naomi, which meant pleasant.
She may have been a woman of gentle spirit, meek and quiet spirit, a woman that was just
a delight to be with, a woman that was, and we find from the story indeed, this is born
(06:32):
out.
She is a woman of great capacity for love.
A woman of tenderness, a woman of kindness, the kind of woman that a man would be drawn
to.
He had the strength in his trust in the Lord that she needed.
And she had in her godliness, in her pleasantness, what he needed.
(06:57):
And they came together and they were married.
And they lived in Bethlehem in Judah.
And Bethlehem also has a wonderful meaning for us.
Beth means house.
Lehem means a house of bread or a house of praise.
You see, a house that's rich and fulfilled.
(07:22):
And so in material things and the needs of the body, it would be with bread.
And the fullness of expression, of course, comes from the heart, the spirit.
So it's a house of praise.
Bethlehem, they lived in the house of praise.
He was all that his wife needed.
(07:43):
She was all that he needed.
And the Lord was their strength.
The Lord was their foundation.
He was their cover.
The marriage started.
A little bit of joy.
But things didn't stay that way.
First, and they say the last little evidence of the Lord's blessing and joy in that marriage
(08:06):
in its early days was this.
Two babies were born to that couple.
Both of them were boys.
So the joy that they started out with continued for a couple of years.
We don't know exactly how long.
But the first one was born, then the other was born.
And we come to the second stage of what happened.
(08:31):
Second, after that little bit of joy, came some trials.
It says right here in Ruth's first chapter, verse two, about the name of the man and so
forth.
I want to go down to this little thought in the verse that there was a famine in that
(09:01):
land.
It was sad that those things had started so well that the house of bread became empty.
The place for delight in all the circumstances of life, you know, and bread is a circumstance,
(09:23):
it just turns sour.
And they met that kind of thought, now what can we do?
But the man took the responsibility.
And what he decided to do, the rather extreme thing, was that he would separate from his
family, not his wife and sons, but I mean his extended family.
(09:46):
He'd separate from them, he'd separate from his friends, he'd separate from his people,
his nation, he'd leave them, he'd separate from the center where God was worshipped,
and that was in Israel.
And he would go to another land, a neighboring land, where he had heard that there was no
famine.
(10:08):
And he went, and he brought his sons and his wife with him.
They went to the little land of Moab, and he of course thought he was doing what was
best.
His wife trusted under his headship, his sons followed their father, and off they went
(10:31):
to Moab.
And they continued there, the end of verse 2 says, then real trial came.
I call this cruel trial.
The first blow was here in verse 3 that Elemelec, the woman's husband, and her name was Naomi,
(10:56):
Elemelec, Naomi's husband died.
I don't suppose that there could be any greater tragedy in a marriage.
How could there be?
And one of the mates dies.
Because you see, in the marriage there's a coming together for a sharing of life, a
(11:20):
giving of one to the other, for the joy and fulfillment of life.
Well, when one dies, that's utterly destroyed.
Cruel trial.
Her husband died.
She was left with two sons to raise.
(11:41):
She was left in a strange country among the strange people outside the place where God
was worshiped.
There she was.
Now the question comes, and this is how you find out about a person under, when they're
under trial, you ask the question, how do they respond?
How did Naomi respond left with all of these sad conditions?
(12:04):
Well, the scriptures tell us basically, because we quickly are taken to the adulthood of
these two sons, that she responded well.
She met the challenge, and she raised her sons by pouring her life into them.
That's what a mother does.
Given children of the Lord, she pours her life into them, to rear them, for they're
(12:29):
good and for the glory of God.
However, a parent's best wishes are always that a child will obey the Lord, follow the
Lord in everything in its life.
These two sons didn't do that.
(12:50):
They didn't obey the Lord in every respect.
Look at what verse 4 says, and they took them wives of the women of Moab.
You see, that's a direct contradiction of what the Lord teaches.
I'd like to turn you back to Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 3.
You can see in this instruction from the Lord to his people Israel, that they were not
(13:18):
to do this.
7 verse 3, neither shall thou make marriages with them, thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter shall thou take unto thy son.
And here it's talking about the peoples of the lands, other than the outside the lands
that were around, or the peoples that were around Israel, or those that were even going
(13:42):
to be around them as they came into the promised land.
They were specially, oh, let me show you something else about the Moab, chapter 23 of Deuteronomy.
Now this is very specific even about Moab.
Chapter 23 of Deuteronomy at verse 3.
(14:03):
You have it, Deuteronomy 23 verse 3.
An Ammonite, or Mullabite, now that means a person from Moab, shall not enter into the
congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation, shall they not enter into the
congregation of the Lord forever.
(14:25):
Now you see, when a stranger, when a Gentile converted to worship God with the Israelites,
they were prohibited from being a part of the congregation in the sense they couldn't
be considered as a Jew for three generations.
A man would come in, his son and his son son.
(14:48):
They could not be considered part of Israel until the next generation, fourth generation.
But if you were from Moab, because of the awfulness of the way that they had treated
Israel, God said they can't be a part of the congregation for ten generations.
God had a special revulsion for the people of Moab, because they met you not with bread
(15:17):
and with water in the way, when you came forth out of Egypt.
And because they hired against you, they loomed the son of Bior, of Pethor, of Mesopotamia,
to curse you.
You know, they went off to get this prophet who would come and curse Israel, and he tried
and tried and tried, but God blessed them each stage of the way.
But God said, because they did that, because they set themselves against you, they can't
(15:42):
be in the congregation for ten generations.
They found it for six.
Thou shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days forever.
Okay?
But what did they all these two sons do?
They took them wise of the women of Moab.
(16:06):
In fact, in the Targum, the ancient writings of the Hebrew Rabbis, they really have a statement
in here about, I mean, in their commentary on this verse, it's just really, really strong.
They said, oh, you know, how they have violated the commands of God, and did that abominable
(16:30):
thing.
You know, it's very strong.
Yes, the Jews from earliest days recognize that these two boys violated the Word of God.
It breaks a mother's heart to see her children grow up and go their own way against the Lord
when she loves him and wants to serve him.
(16:52):
But when those that you love go in their own way, the question then comes, what should
I do?
Should I just cut them out of my heart, forget them, or should I go on loving them and reach
out to them and maybe even love their mates that they have taken unto themselves wrongly?
(17:16):
Now, maybe somebody here this morning who's had this either in their own life or in their
family's life, and the test has come.
As a Christian, as a born-again child, married out of the will of God, one did you know,
has married out of the will of God?
Have you or have you been in that situation so that your parents would say, well, now
(17:39):
what we have to do now is just disown them, have nothing to do with them for the rest
of their lives?
At least God didn't say forever.
He just had 10 generations.
As awful as the thing as the Moabites had done, God's heart was still open to them.
(18:00):
Eventually He wanted His grace and love to take command again.
No, you can't do that.
Naomi wasn't going to do it, and I don't believe we ought to.
Shut up and reject.
Anyone that might come into our family line, even though they may not be there by the will
(18:25):
of God, what we have to be after they're there is the instrument of God in love and grace,
in the Lord's name and in His person through us to meet them in the love and power of God.
I'll show you that from Naomi's life.
She didn't reject these two wives.
(18:47):
Stories were clear.
She met these dear ladies in the love of the Lord.
They had these names, Orpa.
Orpa meant hind or fawn means deer.
It's a gentle name, speaks of grace and beauty.
(19:10):
The other's name was Ruth.
And Ruth means friendship or beauty.
No doubt Naomi's sons found these qualities in these women.
They responded to them.
They saw the match-up of their lives with the qualities and the lives of these women.
(19:34):
Could see how their lives could come together and be strengthened by marrying these women.
Their assessment of their needs and the beauties that they found in these women, we don't deny.
The Scripture bears it out.
You have to hear this though.
As much as you may find that's good in going your own way, whatever that is, no matter
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how good it is, no matter how wonderful, the best you're reasoning.
You have an idea about going a certain way in a certain manner, making a certain decision
that has all of the positives out in front of it that you can see.
No matter how many positives, no matter how solid that counsel seems to you, if it violates
(20:25):
the Word of God, if it stands in direct contrast and contradiction to what God says, don't
do it, brethren.
I beg you, in the name of the Lord, don't let your reasoning set aside the counsels of
God's Word.
You may not understand why His Word is better.
You may not understand why being deprived of what you see as good is better, but I tell
you it is.
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It has to be because He is perfect.
His Word endures forever.
His counsels are wonderful.
To weakness isn't in God's counsels, it's in our understanding.
We can't see as God sees.
So they married anyway.
(21:09):
And we're all prone to this.
I'm not just saying you.
We are all prone to do this at different times in our lives.
We're prone to say, but I know that this way is good and I'm going to do it.
These boys did.
And as wonderful as these dear ladies were, they were not doing this thing.
(21:31):
They were not obeying the Word of God.
Well, they stayed there about ten years, verse four tells us.
Mother, her two sons, these women, they stayed there about ten years.
And verse five tells us of another cruel, cruel trial.
Both sons died.
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Both sons died.
Life started out with joy in that marriage.
Two boys came and added to that joy.
Then came famine.
And the house of bread and the house of praise turned to famine.
(22:18):
They went to a strange country.
The boys were raised.
Husband died.
Boys were raised.
They chose to marry outside the will of God.
And then they died.
Now here was dear Naomi.
Left alone without husband.
(22:39):
Left with two daughters in law.
It isn't the will of God that a woman should bear headship over a man.
When her husband is gone, a woman, a mother has to take care of her family as the head
of that family.
And the two daughters in law of course have their headship in their husbands.
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But when their husbands die, now who's going to take care of them?
And while this isn't this, this just happens because of death.
It doesn't happen by the first design of God or intent of God.
But she has to step back into that role and say, I'm going to watch over these ladies.
I'm going to be their head.
(23:23):
She steps into the role really of mother for these two girls.
These two widows.
These two daughters in law.
She's really stepping into the role of mother.
And she's saying, I don't reject you.
(23:44):
I haven't shut the door of my heart to you.
She could say in her heart, they're not the ones that the Lord would have had my son's
Mary according to his word.
But they did.
And now my place is to love them.
Love them.
Love them in the Lord.
Be for them all I can be in the Lord.
(24:08):
Be a mother.
You know, the most she could be for those girls.
Hear this now.
The most she could be was a mother.
It's not second rate.
Isn't second best.
The most she could be was mother.
She had given from the very winds of her body.
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She had given from her womb the two sons that she bore to these women.
Now she had given her energy, her time, her concern, her love.
And she had in fact made another step here with her son's passing to give her all.
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To keep them with her.
To do all that she could as mother.
So she made a decision.
First, you have a little bit of joy.
Second, you have trial.
Third, you have decision.
What is she going to do?
Well, she heard that Israel was again being blessed by God.
(25:13):
The crops were growing again.
The house of bread was being filled again.
The house of praise was rejoicing again.
And she thought, well, I'll go back to my people.
It's time to leave.
And so she took that action.
Here it is in verse seven.
Wherefore, she went forth out of the place where she was and her two daughters in long
(25:34):
with her.
And they went on the way to return onto the land of Judah.
And I think that verse intends for you to see this.
She made a decision.
She made the decision for the two girls, to the two ladies.
She made the decision as head of that little family.
And she said, we are going.
And they got their things together.
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And they went out and along the road.
The next verse really kind of takes you out along the road somewhere.
They are on their way.
She left.
She left.
So she went forth out of the place where she was.
There's no other way you can read that.
She did get on the road.
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Now along the road.
And you know, with time passing you start to think, have I done the right thing?
It's one thing to say, I love you.
And I'm, you know, and I take action based on that love.
But there's one thing true about our spirits too.
And that is that over time we have to stay sensitive to God and keep listening.
(26:43):
And so as time went along, and I'm speaking now of the distance along the road, I don't
know how far, maybe not very far.
But her thoughts were, am I doing the right thing?
It love wants to do what is best for the one that you love.
That's what love wants to do.
But you have to be honest with yourself as you do whatever you're going to do.
(27:04):
And you have to ask, am I doing it?
Am I really loving the way I'm supposed to love?
And is what I'm doing really best?
I mean, don't get stubborn and say, well, I made the decision.
I've got to go through it until I die.
You may not have to go through it until you die.
There are very few things that one could say that up.
(27:28):
But the decision to go back to her land and to take these two ladies along with her was
not one of those kind of things that you had to stick to.
If it wasn't best, you could renounce it.
She went along, she began to wonder, is this best?
Can I should take these women with me?
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So she says something to her two daughters-in-law of her sake.
Go return each to her mother's house.
Isn't that wonderful?
She says, maybe it's wrong of me to take another mother's place.
Maybe if I really love these two women as a mother ought to love her own daughters, maybe
(28:16):
I had better recognize that there's another mother somewhere for each of them who also
would like to have them back and be able to love them in a full and complete way.
By the way, you know, this also shows me something-that in God's operation of love,
there is always that element I guess you'll have to call it sacrifice.
(28:40):
A willingness to pay a price.
A willingness to be hurt, if need be.
In order for the one that you love to have the perfect service of love, there need to
be a price paid.
When she says, maybe you shouldn't go with me.
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Why don't each of you return to your own mother?
Do you understand that by having taken them into her heart as her daughters to say that
would have almost seemed like losing two more that she loved, cutting them off from
her?
Do you see the depth of her spirit here, the depth of qualities of her love, saying,
(29:27):
go return to your own mothers.
Go return each to her mother's house.
The Lord deal kindly with you as ye have dealt with the dead and with me.
That brings out the bond that there was between them.
This tells you that these two women had also been kind, gentle of spirits, self-sacrificing,
(29:54):
loving toward their husbands, but not only their husbands, but their mother-in-law.
They had loved Naomi and they had proven their love over the years.
In a special way, Naomi is proving her love to them and her regard for their mother's
love for them by the sacrificing offer of having them return.
(30:20):
In verse 9, Naomi looks to the hope of their being fulfilled again in life.
She says, The Lord grant you that ye may find rest each of you in the house of her husband.
Now, when you read that, even from the New American Standard, doesn't really help it
(30:41):
a great deal, but the idea is this.
Naomi is saying, I hope that you go back to your mother and that the Lord is gracious
to you and another man comes into your life.
My hope for you is that you'll marry that man and that that man then will be a blessing
(31:05):
until you'll be fulfilled in a marriage with him and that your joy in life will return.
In other words, she wanted the best for these dear girls.
She loved them as her own.
And no matter what it cost her, she wanted their life to be fulfilled.
(31:28):
The proof of the love comes out a bit in this verse at the end where it tells us, then she
kissed them and they lifted up their voice and wept.
When love tries to find a way to express itself beyond words, God has given us ways
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of touching one another.
And one of the most sensitive parts of the body was the lips.
With the tenderness of the touch of the lips, one can say, I love you.
Then all the emotions of the hearts spill out and it's just a time of three women cry.
(32:16):
It's one of those special privileges for mothers and daughters, I guess, sometimes when they
get together and want to just pour out the depth of their love to one another, it just
gets sealed sometimes with tears.
And that's what they do here.
They're weeping because love is being torn apart in terms of fellowship.
(32:39):
The love is going to be there, but its fellowship is going to be torn apart.
It's always right to weep when they're separation.
Think of the Lord Jesus at the grave side of Lazarus.
You know, it says Jesus wept.
Why?
Because love had known separation and sin had worked its awful work of separation.
(33:08):
And so it's here, these three weep.
And yet they turn and they give this wonderful committal to her.
Here's the response of their love to their mother.
They said unto her, surely we will return with the unto thy people.
So now they're willing to go not because she said they must go, but because they choose.
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Every parent would like their children to get to the place where they choose to do the
thing that's good.
Instead of saying, how many times have I told you to do this or that and you just don't
do it, you're just praying that someday they're going to do it because they want to do it.
Of course it will frankly make you faint, but you know, just to get to that place in
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life where they just say, well, I want to do what's good.
I want to do what's right.
I choose it.
It makes a mother's heart glad when their child chooses to love, chooses to do what's
righteous, chooses the thing that is right.
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When they choose here they say, we want to stay with you.
Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.
I said it again, it isn't easy for love to always do what is best, love to always and
(34:43):
does always want to do what is best for the other, but that isn't always easy.
What I mean is there's a price to pay if a mother loves their child, sometimes they
have to do something because they love the child, they have to do something that is not
very easy.
You know, the scripture tells us about one class, I guess, better say of this kind of
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thing and it's called discipline.
Now every child knows about discipline and it isn't easy for the heart that loves to
discipline.
Well, how do you do it?
Well you do it by surrendering to love, by saying, I have to do that which love requires.
(35:31):
And that's what the parent means dear children when they say, now this hurts you more than
it hurts me.
No, what's wrong?
They say, this hurts me.
That's just ruined my whole teaching there.
This hurts me more than it hurts you.
The child says this hurts me more than it hurts you too.
No, the parent says inwardly, I'm being hurt down in my spirit.
(35:55):
You're just being hurt in your body right now, but I hope that the hurt that may be
there.
Well, like Hebrews 12, that might yield a peaceful fruit of righteousness.
That's the heart's desire in all chasting.
So Ruth and Naomi, I'm sorry Ruth and Oprah, are being, they're confirming their love to
(36:26):
Naomi here, but Naomi has to do something that's not easy.
She says, turn again my daughters.
Why will you go with me?
And then for three verses here, she tells them, you can read it in 11, 12 and 13, she
basically tells them this, I would give you anything I could to fulfill your lives.
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But I don't have any more sons to give.
In fact, she puts it this way, if I had a husband today and I could have sons immediately and
I raised them up, what are you going to do?
Wait till they become adults so that you can marry them again?
I don't have any more to give you.
I can't be the vessel for your fulfillment.
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Isn't that awful to think of some other?
I guess it's part of the hurt when you see your children walk down the aisle in marriage.
They have to go.
And the feeling there for a mother is I've given all of my life into them and for all
of their life, I've poured myself into them, but now I can't give them what they need.
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They really are saying in this marriage, I need something you can't give me.
And you know it's according to the will of God that they marry and you know that you
don't have the resources to give it to them from your own life, your own body.
And so you have to say, amen, go, but it will hurt me.
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I love you, go.
And a mother says amen.
She wants them to be fulfilled and she can't do it herself.
So she has to send them away.
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But you know we don't want to forget God in all of this.
The decision has been passed back to Orpa and back to Ruth.
Now we'll see what they will do with their trust in God despite the appearances of what
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in man's understanding might seem to be best.
Or I better say even in man's knowledge.
First, there's Orpa.
Here you are in verse 14.
They lifted up their voice and wept again in Orpa kissed her mother in law, but Ruth
claved under her.
And it just simply means that she gave her a last kiss and she decided to go back to her
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family.
She did what seemed by the best councils that Naomi could give her and by her best understanding
that she did what seemed the reasonable thing to do if she was going to be fulfilled
and it couldn't be with Naomi.
She would then go according to sight.
She would go back to the thing that seemed to be the place where she's going to get fulfilled
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back to her people, back to her family.
I'm not telling you that that's an ungodly thing to do, but I do want to tell you there
is an element that we should live with in this life.
Even if you make this kind of decision that Orpa makes, you must include this, a firm,
unbroken, fundamental, first place faith in the Lord.
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Before you yield to do whatever your thoughts or your councils or anybody else's would tell
you or what seems reasonable from all the circumstances, make sure that underlying at
all there's this to trust in the Lord.
I talked with a lady last week who had been to her pastor.
In fact, lady used to attend here so she felt confident to talk with me.
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Her pastor, some distance away now, she made a special trip that we could talk.
Her pastor told her that it would be very probably unwise for her to quit her job.
She had a number of reasons why she quit her job, but basically it was because of ungodliness
in the place of her work.
That's what it came down to.
She said, well, it'd be very unwise for her to quit her job because that would threaten
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her family.
She's a lady that does not have a husband.
She's overseeing the care of her children just like Naomi felt in this place.
This pastor said, your children might be threatened or might not be an income, they might not
be food for them.
That was all factually true.
It was all factually true.
It wasn't deviate counseling or something, but she said she just felt unsure about it.
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She seemed to think there was some element missing.
I said, I thought so too that underlying it all, there had to be this, that if she did
the thing that was right, if she put away the ungodliness, even though it meant that
she would be without a job, even though it meant that she might not have that guaranteed
income week by week for her family's care, she was casting herself on the Lord, she was
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trusting in Him and she was committing herself to truth, to uphold righteousness and God
would honor that.
And she went away saying, you know, I have confidence now, I believe I'm going to have
trouble.
I believe I may go without money to pay my bills.
I might lose my car.
I might lose the place where we live, but I'm not going to lose my peace in this that
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the Lord will provide.
He may provide in a different way and at a different level, but my children and I are
going to trust Him.
I think she did the right thing.
And I think Ruth does the right thing here because that's the way Ruth goes.
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Orpa goes one way, Ruth goes another.
And Ruth basically says, Naomi says, go and Ruth says no.
No, I'm going to stay with you.
This beautiful little section, two verses that stand out from all the scripture of this
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commitment of a daughter to her mother and to trust in the Lord.
The beauty of these verses is that it's not just a person committing themselves to another,
it's because of their fundamental or underlying trust that the Lord is going to make this
thing work out.
16 and 17, Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or return from following after thee.
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For with it I'll go, as I will go, and where thou largest I will lodge.
My people shall be my people and thy God my God.
Where thou daiest will I die, and there will I be buried.
In other words, to the end of my life, you may die before I do, but I'll still stay true
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to standing by you.
I'll stay in that place even if you die and I will die there.
And if I don't do this, she basically says, I leave it open for the Lord's hand to discipline me.
I am utterly committed to my love for you and my trust in the Lord.
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Put those two things together.
Trust in the Lord is first and committal in that love that God gives.
Now, of course, the story could go on and tell the awfulness of further pain.
Cruel hurt, but it doesn't.
Our God is gracious toward both these ladies, and we find one of the most wonderful love
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stories there is in the whole Bible that based on this committal to the Lord and commitment
of trust and love and on a mother's commitment to pay the price and sacrifice of that love
and the daughter's willingness to commit her love to that mother, we find the Lord's grace
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able to be poured out.
There are so many blessings that you and I miss in this life.
We're not going to know till heaven how much we've missed.
All we'll know, this side of glory, is how much we've been blessed.
In fact, I have to dare say, I don't think we even know most of that.
I think God is doing things for us every day and watching over us and caring for us in
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ways that go beyond our understanding.
But when you get to heaven, all things will be made known to you.
Not only are you going to see how gritually you were blessed down here on earth, I believe
that in an understanding of that, in a greater way too, you're going to see what could have
been.
Now, I rest that on this, that God's perfect revelation of what was and therefore a perfect
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understanding of what His will was will be given to you.
And in that will, of course, you could project and see what He would have given you, what
He would have liked to have poured out for you.
So here's the truth that has to underlie that.
If you want God's best, though you may not understand why He asks you to submit to Him,
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why He asks you to follow along and obey His word, why He asks of you always to have a
tender heart toward Him, why He asks you to make the sacrifice that love does of self-interest
and seek and love that good of the other, well, you may not understand all of that.
Let me tell you this from the story.
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It's proved all the way through the Word of God that if you'll do that, you give God
an opportunity to bless you.
You give God an opportunity to work.
You give God an opportunity.
And He loves to bless.
He loves to work for your good, but you must give Him the opportunity.
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And the opportunity comes when you yield to Him, even though you may not know what it
is He wants to do, to let Him have His way.
Ruth is yielding.
She has no idea how it could possibly be that she could ever have another husband.
She has no idea how it could possibly be that she could even be fed.
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Or how Naomi's going to be fed.
She has no idea about any way that God could bless her, but she is willing to give herself
her heart to love her mother, this one that is the choice.
See, she could have gone back to her natural mother.
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What she's doing here is making in even a spiritual sense and even in a tangible sense,
she is truly cementing this truth that Naomi is her mother.
What a blessing for a mother.
A daughter or a son.
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That's a daughter or a son, not because they were born to her.
Not just that, but because they in their hearts have made her their mother.
There's a difference.
And every mother wants their children to make them her mother, their mother.
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And every child needs to learn this lesson.
And I speak to everyone in here as a child.
You need to learn to love your mother and your father.
Not simply because you are born of their flesh, but you need to choose to love them, to love
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them as an act of your spirit.
To choose them as your mother and father, to love them in the love of God.
After all, in his wisdom beyond your understanding, he chose you for that family.
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And therefore he must in his mind want this kind of love from you.
A mother longs for this and a daughter is fulfilled in it.
I can't study it with you this morning, but I'll tell you this.
Her trust, Ruth's trust in God to meet her need was honored.
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And all the richness of God's love being poured out on her behalf came to her because
of her commitment to the Lord first and to love her mother Naomi.
And it gave God an opportunity to bless her and God blessed her beyond any, if you can't
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read this book and say, well, she could have had that in Moab, nonsense.
You would have to just read the genealogies in Matthew 1 and find that this dear lady
is in the lineage of the Lord Jesus to realize she could not have gotten that blessing in
Moab.
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The perfect love of a daughter and the perfect love of a mother rest on a perfect love for
Jesus.
There is no other, no better foundation.
Let's pray.
Lord, how wonderful it is that you've given us marriage and having of children and the
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raising of children and marriage for them, but all love through Lord through all those
times of love relationships.
There's the opportunity to know the joys that you have designed these lives for.
You might not cheat ourselves of the fullness of what our family relationships were meant
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to be.
I pray for each one of us that we will love our mothers by choice with gladness, with a
spiritual love, with a delight, with a commitment to love that goes beyond mere response to
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them because they are our physical mother, our natural mother, but to love them with
a spirit commitment that recognizes you've designed us for the home that we were a part
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of, to love them with a love that comes from you.
I pray for every mother to be blessed by having such love given, for every child here to bless
in giving it.
In Jesus name, amen.
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Thank you, Pastor Raines, for another passage from the Word of God, especially this one on
a mother's love, even though it's the week after Mother's Day, which is okay.
So you like it?
Please come back again.
If you didn't like it, well, come back again anyway, maybe we'll have something you'll
like next week.
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So I want to thank you.
Oh wait, before I do that, I say check out the website www.legacy bible podcast.com.
Check that out.
And if you want to check out our YouTube channel, just the same here, just a little different
video version of the audio podcast, you can check that on the Like-see-by-ball podcast
(53:14):
YouTube channel.
All right, so now thank you for coming and hope to see you again next week and bring
some friends and spread the word around.
Listen to the Legacy bible podcast.
So thank you for listening.
I'll see you again next week and have a great day.
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See you tomorrow, next week.
Bye.
Hello friends and welcome or welcome back.
(00:15):
Of course, this is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you will find legacy lessons
and legacy audio from the tape archives of the Fellowship Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois.
By all lessons taught by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Rains, and I am your host, Marcus
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Onate.
And today I'm going to be bringing to you another one from our collection.
This one is, I think I mentioned last week, but being Mother's Day, so that one was
Mother's Love, which is part one.
Well, I do not have part two, at least not yet.
I haven't found it, but this one is actually part three.
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So we have part two missing, so we go from one to part three on a Mother's Love.
And this one is titled, The Perfect Love of a Mother, Lessons from the Book of Ruth.
It was originally preached on May 20, 1990, May 20, 1990.
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By our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Rains, at the Fellowship Bible Church, probably the
morning service.
So let's get right into it and take it away, Pastor.
I do want you to turn to the Book of Ruth with me.
I have to admit to you that my study with you in the Book of Ruth was not planned two
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or three weeks ago when I told you we were going to have a two-part series, because this
is part three.
In the study of a Mother's Love, I haven't really attempted for some years to go back
and talk of these things.
And I believe God's helped me through the seasoning of that time to kind of come and
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let him speak in a fresh way.
This is a story about love, but I think I'd like to turn the emphasis where we can to
the love that God shows us here that comes from a mother to a daughter and from a daughter
to a mother.
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This is a story, really, of motherhood when we come to the Book of Ruth, a story about
motherhood's joys and sorrows.
And it's also a story about the underlying strength of motherhood and that underlying
strength is love.
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Kind of how that love is made perfect through complete trust in the Lord.
The world can know the love of motherhood and the strength of that love, but they can't
know the perfect working of that love and its strength without trusting in the Lord.
There just isn't any perfecting of that love.
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It's wonderful in the Word of God.
We can see how a mother's love can be brought to be all that it should be, all that it can
be.
Well, this is a story from the Book of Ruth about that kind of love.
First in a story, there's a little bit of joy.
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If you have the Book of Ruth open and we're in the first chapter, there's a story about
a man and a woman.
And the first bit of joy that enters the story is this, they were married.
They were married.
When a man and woman get married, it's a time for joy.
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Wouldn't it be awful if a man and woman were coming together and they were just angry about
it, all upset and hurt that they would have to get married?
Wouldn't it be terrible to start out that way?
Some marriages end up that way, but they shouldn't start out that way.
And I'm sure with this man and this woman in this book, the Lord had given them all love
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for each other and I'm sure they stepped into marriage together that they fully expected
to have a life filled with that joy.
It started that way.
By the way, the man's name was Elimalek and Elimalek has a special meaning.
The meaning is, my God is king.
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The wonderful story from the Book of Ruth about the meanings of the names in the book,
but it starts right here with a man with such a strong name.
My God is king.
A woman can take trust in that.
A woman can take refuge in a man whose God is king.
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If a man will let the Lord Jesus be his head, his authority, his strength, a woman can
take rest in that, confidence in that, joy in that, because you see, it allows her heart
to express itself freely to the Lord and with her husband.
Now if a man won't do that, there's this great struggle that's set up in a woman's
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heart.
She needs to trust under the cover of her husband, under the headship of her husband.
She needs to have that confidence and joy in that union, but this man gave it.
He gave it because God, his God, was king.
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And then the woman's name, Naomi, also tells us a wonderful thing about her, maybe her
personality.
Her name is Naomi, which meant pleasant.
She may have been a woman of gentle spirit, meek and quiet spirit, a woman that was just
a delight to be with, a woman that was, and we find from the story indeed, this is born
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out.
She is a woman of great capacity for love.
A woman of tenderness, a woman of kindness, the kind of woman that a man would be drawn
to.
He had the strength in his trust in the Lord that she needed.
And she had in her godliness, in her pleasantness, what he needed.
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And they came together and they were married.
And they lived in Bethlehem in Judah.
And Bethlehem also has a wonderful meaning for us.
Beth means house.
Lehem means a house of bread or a house of praise.
You see, a house that's rich and fulfilled.
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And so in material things and the needs of the body, it would be with bread.
And the fullness of expression, of course, comes from the heart, the spirit.
So it's a house of praise.
Bethlehem, they lived in the house of praise.
He was all that his wife needed.
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She was all that he needed.
And the Lord was their strength.
The Lord was their foundation.
He was their cover.
The marriage started.
A little bit of joy.
But things didn't stay that way.
First, and they say the last little evidence of the Lord's blessing and joy in that marriage
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in its early days was this.
Two babies were born to that couple.
Both of them were boys.
So the joy that they started out with continued for a couple of years.
We don't know exactly how long.
But the first one was born, then the other was born.
And we come to the second stage of what happened.
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Second, after that little bit of joy, came some trials.
It says right here in Ruth's first chapter, verse two, about the name of the man and so
forth.
I want to go down to this little thought in the verse that there was a famine in that
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land.
It was sad that those things had started so well that the house of bread became empty.
The place for delight in all the circumstances of life, you know, and bread is a circumstance,
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it just turns sour.
And they met that kind of thought, now what can we do?
But the man took the responsibility.
And what he decided to do, the rather extreme thing, was that he would separate from his
family, not his wife and sons, but I mean his extended family.
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He'd separate from them, he'd separate from his friends, he'd separate from his people,
his nation, he'd leave them, he'd separate from the center where God was worshipped,
and that was in Israel.
And he would go to another land, a neighboring land, where he had heard that there was no
famine.
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And he went, and he brought his sons and his wife with him.
They went to the little land of Moab, and he of course thought he was doing what was
best.
His wife trusted under his headship, his sons followed their father, and off they went
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to Moab.
And they continued there, the end of verse 2 says, then real trial came.
I call this cruel trial.
The first blow was here in verse 3 that Elemelec, the woman's husband, and her name was Naomi,
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Elemelec, Naomi's husband died.
I don't suppose that there could be any greater tragedy in a marriage.
How could there be?
And one of the mates dies.
Because you see, in the marriage there's a coming together for a sharing of life, a
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giving of one to the other, for the joy and fulfillment of life.
Well, when one dies, that's utterly destroyed.
Cruel trial.
Her husband died.
She was left with two sons to raise.
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She was left in a strange country among the strange people outside the place where God
was worshiped.
There she was.
Now the question comes, and this is how you find out about a person under, when they're
under trial, you ask the question, how do they respond?
How did Naomi respond left with all of these sad conditions?
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Well, the scriptures tell us basically, because we quickly are taken to the adulthood of
these two sons, that she responded well.
She met the challenge, and she raised her sons by pouring her life into them.
That's what a mother does.
Given children of the Lord, she pours her life into them, to rear them, for they're
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good and for the glory of God.
However, a parent's best wishes are always that a child will obey the Lord, follow the
Lord in everything in its life.
These two sons didn't do that.
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They didn't obey the Lord in every respect.
Look at what verse 4 says, and they took them wives of the women of Moab.
You see, that's a direct contradiction of what the Lord teaches.
I'd like to turn you back to Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 3.
You can see in this instruction from the Lord to his people Israel, that they were not
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to do this.
7 verse 3, neither shall thou make marriages with them, thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter shall thou take unto thy son.
And here it's talking about the peoples of the lands, other than the outside the lands
that were around, or the peoples that were around Israel, or those that were even going
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to be around them as they came into the promised land.
They were specially, oh, let me show you something else about the Moab, chapter 23 of Deuteronomy.
Now this is very specific even about Moab.
Chapter 23 of Deuteronomy at verse 3.
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You have it, Deuteronomy 23 verse 3.
An Ammonite, or Mullabite, now that means a person from Moab, shall not enter into the
congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation, shall they not enter into the
congregation of the Lord forever.
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Now you see, when a stranger, when a Gentile converted to worship God with the Israelites,
they were prohibited from being a part of the congregation in the sense they couldn't
be considered as a Jew for three generations.
A man would come in, his son and his son son.
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They could not be considered part of Israel until the next generation, fourth generation.
But if you were from Moab, because of the awfulness of the way that they had treated
Israel, God said they can't be a part of the congregation for ten generations.
God had a special revulsion for the people of Moab, because they met you not with bread
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and with water in the way, when you came forth out of Egypt.
And because they hired against you, they loomed the son of Bior, of Pethor, of Mesopotamia,
to curse you.
You know, they went off to get this prophet who would come and curse Israel, and he tried
and tried and tried, but God blessed them each stage of the way.
But God said, because they did that, because they set themselves against you, they can't
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be in the congregation for ten generations.
They found it for six.
Thou shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days forever.
Okay?
But what did they all these two sons do?
They took them wise of the women of Moab.
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In fact, in the Targum, the ancient writings of the Hebrew Rabbis, they really have a statement
in here about, I mean, in their commentary on this verse, it's just really, really strong.
They said, oh, you know, how they have violated the commands of God, and did that abominable
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thing.
You know, it's very strong.
Yes, the Jews from earliest days recognize that these two boys violated the Word of God.
It breaks a mother's heart to see her children grow up and go their own way against the Lord
when she loves him and wants to serve him.
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But when those that you love go in their own way, the question then comes, what should
I do?
Should I just cut them out of my heart, forget them, or should I go on loving them and reach
out to them and maybe even love their mates that they have taken unto themselves wrongly?
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Now, maybe somebody here this morning who's had this either in their own life or in their
family's life, and the test has come.
As a Christian, as a born-again child, married out of the will of God, one did you know,
has married out of the will of God?
Have you or have you been in that situation so that your parents would say, well, now
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what we have to do now is just disown them, have nothing to do with them for the rest
of their lives?
At least God didn't say forever.
He just had 10 generations.
As awful as the thing as the Moabites had done, God's heart was still open to them.
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Eventually He wanted His grace and love to take command again.
No, you can't do that.
Naomi wasn't going to do it, and I don't believe we ought to.
Shut up and reject.
Anyone that might come into our family line, even though they may not be there by the will
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of God, what we have to be after they're there is the instrument of God in love and grace,
in the Lord's name and in His person through us to meet them in the love and power of God.
I'll show you that from Naomi's life.
She didn't reject these two wives.
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Stories were clear.
She met these dear ladies in the love of the Lord.
They had these names, Orpa.
Orpa meant hind or fawn means deer.
It's a gentle name, speaks of grace and beauty.
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The other's name was Ruth.
And Ruth means friendship or beauty.
No doubt Naomi's sons found these qualities in these women.
They responded to them.
They saw the match-up of their lives with the qualities and the lives of these women.
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Could see how their lives could come together and be strengthened by marrying these women.
Their assessment of their needs and the beauties that they found in these women, we don't deny.
The Scripture bears it out.
You have to hear this though.
As much as you may find that's good in going your own way, whatever that is, no matter
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how good it is, no matter how wonderful, the best you're reasoning.
You have an idea about going a certain way in a certain manner, making a certain decision
that has all of the positives out in front of it that you can see.
No matter how many positives, no matter how solid that counsel seems to you, if it violates
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the Word of God, if it stands in direct contrast and contradiction to what God says, don't
do it, brethren.
I beg you, in the name of the Lord, don't let your reasoning set aside the counsels of
God's Word.
You may not understand why His Word is better.
You may not understand why being deprived of what you see as good is better, but I tell
you it is.
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It has to be because He is perfect.
His Word endures forever.
His counsels are wonderful.
To weakness isn't in God's counsels, it's in our understanding.
We can't see as God sees.
So they married anyway.
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And we're all prone to this.
I'm not just saying you.
We are all prone to do this at different times in our lives.
We're prone to say, but I know that this way is good and I'm going to do it.
These boys did.
And as wonderful as these dear ladies were, they were not doing this thing.
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They were not obeying the Word of God.
Well, they stayed there about ten years, verse four tells us.
Mother, her two sons, these women, they stayed there about ten years.
And verse five tells us of another cruel, cruel trial.
Both sons died.
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Both sons died.
Life started out with joy in that marriage.
Two boys came and added to that joy.
Then came famine.
And the house of bread and the house of praise turned to famine.
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They went to a strange country.
The boys were raised.
Husband died.
Boys were raised.
They chose to marry outside the will of God.
And then they died.
Now here was dear Naomi.
Left alone without husband.
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Left with two daughters in law.
It isn't the will of God that a woman should bear headship over a man.
When her husband is gone, a woman, a mother has to take care of her family as the head
of that family.
And the two daughters in law of course have their headship in their husbands.
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But when their husbands die, now who's going to take care of them?
And while this isn't this, this just happens because of death.
It doesn't happen by the first design of God or intent of God.
But she has to step back into that role and say, I'm going to watch over these ladies.
I'm going to be their head.
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She steps into the role really of mother for these two girls.
These two widows.
These two daughters in law.
She's really stepping into the role of mother.
And she's saying, I don't reject you.
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I haven't shut the door of my heart to you.
She could say in her heart, they're not the ones that the Lord would have had my son's
Mary according to his word.
But they did.
And now my place is to love them.
Love them.
Love them in the Lord.
Be for them all I can be in the Lord.
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Be a mother.
You know, the most she could be for those girls.
Hear this now.
The most she could be was a mother.
It's not second rate.
Isn't second best.
The most she could be was mother.
She had given from the very winds of her body.
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She had given from her womb the two sons that she bore to these women.
Now she had given her energy, her time, her concern, her love.
And she had in fact made another step here with her son's passing to give her all.
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To keep them with her.
To do all that she could as mother.
So she made a decision.
First, you have a little bit of joy.
Second, you have trial.
Third, you have decision.
What is she going to do?
Well, she heard that Israel was again being blessed by God.
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The crops were growing again.
The house of bread was being filled again.
The house of praise was rejoicing again.
And she thought, well, I'll go back to my people.
It's time to leave.
And so she took that action.
Here it is in verse seven.
Wherefore, she went forth out of the place where she was and her two daughters in long
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with her.
And they went on the way to return onto the land of Judah.
And I think that verse intends for you to see this.
She made a decision.
She made the decision for the two girls, to the two ladies.
She made the decision as head of that little family.
And she said, we are going.
And they got their things together.
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And they went out and along the road.
The next verse really kind of takes you out along the road somewhere.
They are on their way.
She left.
She left.
So she went forth out of the place where she was.
There's no other way you can read that.
She did get on the road.
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Now along the road.
And you know, with time passing you start to think, have I done the right thing?
It's one thing to say, I love you.
And I'm, you know, and I take action based on that love.
But there's one thing true about our spirits too.
And that is that over time we have to stay sensitive to God and keep listening.
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And so as time went along, and I'm speaking now of the distance along the road, I don't
know how far, maybe not very far.
But her thoughts were, am I doing the right thing?
It love wants to do what is best for the one that you love.
That's what love wants to do.
But you have to be honest with yourself as you do whatever you're going to do.
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And you have to ask, am I doing it?
Am I really loving the way I'm supposed to love?
And is what I'm doing really best?
I mean, don't get stubborn and say, well, I made the decision.
I've got to go through it until I die.
You may not have to go through it until you die.
There are very few things that one could say that up.
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But the decision to go back to her land and to take these two ladies along with her was
not one of those kind of things that you had to stick to.
If it wasn't best, you could renounce it.
She went along, she began to wonder, is this best?
Can I should take these women with me?
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So she says something to her two daughters-in-law of her sake.
Go return each to her mother's house.
Isn't that wonderful?
She says, maybe it's wrong of me to take another mother's place.
Maybe if I really love these two women as a mother ought to love her own daughters, maybe
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I had better recognize that there's another mother somewhere for each of them who also
would like to have them back and be able to love them in a full and complete way.
By the way, you know, this also shows me something-that in God's operation of love,
there is always that element I guess you'll have to call it sacrifice.
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A willingness to pay a price.
A willingness to be hurt, if need be.
In order for the one that you love to have the perfect service of love, there need to
be a price paid.
When she says, maybe you shouldn't go with me.
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Why don't each of you return to your own mother?
Do you understand that by having taken them into her heart as her daughters to say that
would have almost seemed like losing two more that she loved, cutting them off from
her?
Do you see the depth of her spirit here, the depth of qualities of her love, saying,
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go return to your own mothers.
Go return each to her mother's house.
The Lord deal kindly with you as ye have dealt with the dead and with me.
That brings out the bond that there was between them.
This tells you that these two women had also been kind, gentle of spirits, self-sacrificing,
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loving toward their husbands, but not only their husbands, but their mother-in-law.
They had loved Naomi and they had proven their love over the years.
In a special way, Naomi is proving her love to them and her regard for their mother's
love for them by the sacrificing offer of having them return.
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In verse 9, Naomi looks to the hope of their being fulfilled again in life.
She says, The Lord grant you that ye may find rest each of you in the house of her husband.
Now, when you read that, even from the New American Standard, doesn't really help it
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a great deal, but the idea is this.
Naomi is saying, I hope that you go back to your mother and that the Lord is gracious
to you and another man comes into your life.
My hope for you is that you'll marry that man and that that man then will be a blessing
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until you'll be fulfilled in a marriage with him and that your joy in life will return.
In other words, she wanted the best for these dear girls.
She loved them as her own.
And no matter what it cost her, she wanted their life to be fulfilled.
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The proof of the love comes out a bit in this verse at the end where it tells us, then she
kissed them and they lifted up their voice and wept.
When love tries to find a way to express itself beyond words, God has given us ways
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of touching one another.
And one of the most sensitive parts of the body was the lips.
With the tenderness of the touch of the lips, one can say, I love you.
Then all the emotions of the hearts spill out and it's just a time of three women cry.
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It's one of those special privileges for mothers and daughters, I guess, sometimes when they
get together and want to just pour out the depth of their love to one another, it just
gets sealed sometimes with tears.
And that's what they do here.
They're weeping because love is being torn apart in terms of fellowship.
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The love is going to be there, but its fellowship is going to be torn apart.
It's always right to weep when they're separation.
Think of the Lord Jesus at the grave side of Lazarus.
You know, it says Jesus wept.
Why?
Because love had known separation and sin had worked its awful work of separation.
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And so it's here, these three weep.
And yet they turn and they give this wonderful committal to her.
Here's the response of their love to their mother.
They said unto her, surely we will return with the unto thy people.
So now they're willing to go not because she said they must go, but because they choose.
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Every parent would like their children to get to the place where they choose to do the
thing that's good.
Instead of saying, how many times have I told you to do this or that and you just don't
do it, you're just praying that someday they're going to do it because they want to do it.
Of course it will frankly make you faint, but you know, just to get to that place in
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life where they just say, well, I want to do what's good.
I want to do what's right.
I choose it.
It makes a mother's heart glad when their child chooses to love, chooses to do what's
righteous, chooses the thing that is right.
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When they choose here they say, we want to stay with you.
Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.
I said it again, it isn't easy for love to always do what is best, love to always and
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does always want to do what is best for the other, but that isn't always easy.
What I mean is there's a price to pay if a mother loves their child, sometimes they
have to do something because they love the child, they have to do something that is not
very easy.
You know, the scripture tells us about one class, I guess, better say of this kind of
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thing and it's called discipline.
Now every child knows about discipline and it isn't easy for the heart that loves to
discipline.
Well, how do you do it?
Well you do it by surrendering to love, by saying, I have to do that which love requires.
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And that's what the parent means dear children when they say, now this hurts you more than
it hurts me.
No, what's wrong?
They say, this hurts me.
That's just ruined my whole teaching there.
This hurts me more than it hurts you.
The child says this hurts me more than it hurts you too.
No, the parent says inwardly, I'm being hurt down in my spirit.
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You're just being hurt in your body right now, but I hope that the hurt that may be
there.
Well, like Hebrews 12, that might yield a peaceful fruit of righteousness.
That's the heart's desire in all chasting.
So Ruth and Naomi, I'm sorry Ruth and Oprah, are being, they're confirming their love to
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Naomi here, but Naomi has to do something that's not easy.
She says, turn again my daughters.
Why will you go with me?
And then for three verses here, she tells them, you can read it in 11, 12 and 13, she
basically tells them this, I would give you anything I could to fulfill your lives.
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But I don't have any more sons to give.
In fact, she puts it this way, if I had a husband today and I could have sons immediately and
I raised them up, what are you going to do?
Wait till they become adults so that you can marry them again?
I don't have any more to give you.
I can't be the vessel for your fulfillment.
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Isn't that awful to think of some other?
I guess it's part of the hurt when you see your children walk down the aisle in marriage.
They have to go.
And the feeling there for a mother is I've given all of my life into them and for all
of their life, I've poured myself into them, but now I can't give them what they need.
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They really are saying in this marriage, I need something you can't give me.
And you know it's according to the will of God that they marry and you know that you
don't have the resources to give it to them from your own life, your own body.
And so you have to say, amen, go, but it will hurt me.
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I love you, go.
And a mother says amen.
She wants them to be fulfilled and she can't do it herself.
So she has to send them away.
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But you know we don't want to forget God in all of this.
The decision has been passed back to Orpa and back to Ruth.
Now we'll see what they will do with their trust in God despite the appearances of what
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in man's understanding might seem to be best.
Or I better say even in man's knowledge.
First, there's Orpa.
Here you are in verse 14.
They lifted up their voice and wept again in Orpa kissed her mother in law, but Ruth
claved under her.
And it just simply means that she gave her a last kiss and she decided to go back to her
(39:12):
family.
She did what seemed by the best councils that Naomi could give her and by her best understanding
that she did what seemed the reasonable thing to do if she was going to be fulfilled
and it couldn't be with Naomi.
She would then go according to sight.
She would go back to the thing that seemed to be the place where she's going to get fulfilled
(39:34):
back to her people, back to her family.
I'm not telling you that that's an ungodly thing to do, but I do want to tell you there
is an element that we should live with in this life.
Even if you make this kind of decision that Orpa makes, you must include this, a firm,
unbroken, fundamental, first place faith in the Lord.
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Before you yield to do whatever your thoughts or your councils or anybody else's would tell
you or what seems reasonable from all the circumstances, make sure that underlying at
all there's this to trust in the Lord.
I talked with a lady last week who had been to her pastor.
In fact, lady used to attend here so she felt confident to talk with me.
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Her pastor, some distance away now, she made a special trip that we could talk.
Her pastor told her that it would be very probably unwise for her to quit her job.
She had a number of reasons why she quit her job, but basically it was because of ungodliness
in the place of her work.
That's what it came down to.
She said, well, it'd be very unwise for her to quit her job because that would threaten
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her family.
She's a lady that does not have a husband.
She's overseeing the care of her children just like Naomi felt in this place.
This pastor said, your children might be threatened or might not be an income, they might not
be food for them.
That was all factually true.
It was all factually true.
It wasn't deviate counseling or something, but she said she just felt unsure about it.
(41:15):
She seemed to think there was some element missing.
I said, I thought so too that underlying it all, there had to be this, that if she did
the thing that was right, if she put away the ungodliness, even though it meant that
she would be without a job, even though it meant that she might not have that guaranteed
income week by week for her family's care, she was casting herself on the Lord, she was
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trusting in Him and she was committing herself to truth, to uphold righteousness and God
would honor that.
And she went away saying, you know, I have confidence now, I believe I'm going to have
trouble.
I believe I may go without money to pay my bills.
I might lose my car.
I might lose the place where we live, but I'm not going to lose my peace in this that
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the Lord will provide.
He may provide in a different way and at a different level, but my children and I are
going to trust Him.
I think she did the right thing.
And I think Ruth does the right thing here because that's the way Ruth goes.
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Orpa goes one way, Ruth goes another.
And Ruth basically says, Naomi says, go and Ruth says no.
No, I'm going to stay with you.
This beautiful little section, two verses that stand out from all the scripture of this
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commitment of a daughter to her mother and to trust in the Lord.
The beauty of these verses is that it's not just a person committing themselves to another,
it's because of their fundamental or underlying trust that the Lord is going to make this
thing work out.
16 and 17, Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee or return from following after thee.
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For with it I'll go, as I will go, and where thou largest I will lodge.
My people shall be my people and thy God my God.
Where thou daiest will I die, and there will I be buried.
In other words, to the end of my life, you may die before I do, but I'll still stay true
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to standing by you.
I'll stay in that place even if you die and I will die there.
And if I don't do this, she basically says, I leave it open for the Lord's hand to discipline me.
I am utterly committed to my love for you and my trust in the Lord.
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Put those two things together.
Trust in the Lord is first and committal in that love that God gives.
Now, of course, the story could go on and tell the awfulness of further pain.
Cruel hurt, but it doesn't.
Our God is gracious toward both these ladies, and we find one of the most wonderful love
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stories there is in the whole Bible that based on this committal to the Lord and commitment
of trust and love and on a mother's commitment to pay the price and sacrifice of that love
and the daughter's willingness to commit her love to that mother, we find the Lord's grace
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able to be poured out.
There are so many blessings that you and I miss in this life.
We're not going to know till heaven how much we've missed.
All we'll know, this side of glory, is how much we've been blessed.
In fact, I have to dare say, I don't think we even know most of that.
I think God is doing things for us every day and watching over us and caring for us in
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ways that go beyond our understanding.
But when you get to heaven, all things will be made known to you.
Not only are you going to see how gritually you were blessed down here on earth, I believe
that in an understanding of that, in a greater way too, you're going to see what could have
been.
Now, I rest that on this, that God's perfect revelation of what was and therefore a perfect
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understanding of what His will was will be given to you.
And in that will, of course, you could project and see what He would have given you, what
He would have liked to have poured out for you.
So here's the truth that has to underlie that.
If you want God's best, though you may not understand why He asks you to submit to Him,
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why He asks you to follow along and obey His word, why He asks of you always to have a
tender heart toward Him, why He asks you to make the sacrifice that love does of self-interest
and seek and love that good of the other, well, you may not understand all of that.
Let me tell you this from the story.
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It's proved all the way through the Word of God that if you'll do that, you give God
an opportunity to bless you.
You give God an opportunity to work.
You give God an opportunity.
And He loves to bless.
He loves to work for your good, but you must give Him the opportunity.
(46:59):
And the opportunity comes when you yield to Him, even though you may not know what it
is He wants to do, to let Him have His way.
Ruth is yielding.
She has no idea how it could possibly be that she could ever have another husband.
She has no idea how it could possibly be that she could even be fed.
(47:22):
Or how Naomi's going to be fed.
She has no idea about any way that God could bless her, but she is willing to give herself
her heart to love her mother, this one that is the choice.
See, she could have gone back to her natural mother.
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What she's doing here is making in even a spiritual sense and even in a tangible sense,
she is truly cementing this truth that Naomi is her mother.
What a blessing for a mother.
A daughter or a son.
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That's a daughter or a son, not because they were born to her.
Not just that, but because they in their hearts have made her their mother.
There's a difference.
And every mother wants their children to make them her mother, their mother.
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And every child needs to learn this lesson.
And I speak to everyone in here as a child.
You need to learn to love your mother and your father.
Not simply because you are born of their flesh, but you need to choose to love them, to love
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them as an act of your spirit.
To choose them as your mother and father, to love them in the love of God.
After all, in his wisdom beyond your understanding, he chose you for that family.
(49:13):
And therefore he must in his mind want this kind of love from you.
A mother longs for this and a daughter is fulfilled in it.
I can't study it with you this morning, but I'll tell you this.
Her trust, Ruth's trust in God to meet her need was honored.
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And all the richness of God's love being poured out on her behalf came to her because
of her commitment to the Lord first and to love her mother Naomi.
And it gave God an opportunity to bless her and God blessed her beyond any, if you can't
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read this book and say, well, she could have had that in Moab, nonsense.
You would have to just read the genealogies in Matthew 1 and find that this dear lady
is in the lineage of the Lord Jesus to realize she could not have gotten that blessing in
Moab.
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The perfect love of a daughter and the perfect love of a mother rest on a perfect love for
Jesus.
There is no other, no better foundation.
Let's pray.
Lord, how wonderful it is that you've given us marriage and having of children and the
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raising of children and marriage for them, but all love through Lord through all those
times of love relationships.
There's the opportunity to know the joys that you have designed these lives for.
You might not cheat ourselves of the fullness of what our family relationships were meant
(51:20):
to be.
I pray for each one of us that we will love our mothers by choice with gladness, with a
spiritual love, with a delight, with a commitment to love that goes beyond mere response to
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them because they are our physical mother, our natural mother, but to love them with
a spirit commitment that recognizes you've designed us for the home that we were a part
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of, to love them with a love that comes from you.
I pray for every mother to be blessed by having such love given, for every child here to bless
in giving it.
In Jesus name, amen.
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Thank you, Pastor Raines, for another passage from the Word of God, especially this one on
a mother's love, even though it's the week after Mother's Day, which is okay.
So you like it?
Please come back again.
If you didn't like it, well, come back again anyway, maybe we'll have something you'll
like next week.
(52:51):
So I want to thank you.
Oh wait, before I do that, I say check out the website www.legacy bible podcast.com.
Check that out.
And if you want to check out our YouTube channel, just the same here, just a little different
video version of the audio podcast, you can check that on the Like-see-by-ball podcast
(53:14):
YouTube channel.
All right, so now thank you for coming and hope to see you again next week and bring
some friends and spread the word around.
Listen to the Legacy bible podcast.
So thank you for listening.
I'll see you again next week and have a great day.
(53:35):
See you tomorrow, next week.
Bye.
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