The Antidote To Bitterness

Ruth 1:19-22

Let me invite your attention to the book of Ruth 1:19-22. I am reading from the ESV. This is the word of the Lord.

¹⁹ So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” ²⁰ She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. ²¹ I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

²² So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

And this is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God.

When Life Gives You Lemons…

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This one of those folk wisdom sayings about making the best of a bad situation. It’s a call to seize on the opportunities presented by your problems and turn them into new and profitable ventures.

Sometimes life gives you an overwhelming number of lemons in a country where no-one drinks lemonade.

Now no doubt there is something useful about such advice – especially for the more business-minded people in our midst. However, it is also true that sometimes life gives you an overwhelming number of lemons in a country where no-one drinks lemonade.

Sometimes life gives you so many lemons, that your entire existence starts to feel like one big, bitter, lemon. There is no sweetness to be found anywhere you turn.

…Sometimes You Can’t Make Lemonade

Some of you feel like I am squeezing this lemon metaphor a bit too far! But suffice it to say that sometimes we are so shocked and traumatised by calamity that we don’t even have the mind to think about making lemonade.

Sometimes we run into the kinds of problems that are so big, so deep, so prolonged, that we could never in a million years capitalise on them to make anything good.

Think about it.

A Problem You Can’t Hide

Have you ever been so deeply battered and bothered by a problem that you couldn’t hide it no matter how hard you tried? It was so spread out in the very fibres of your being that it came out in one way or another.

Sometimes we run into the kinds of trials that act on us more than we act on them.

Harsh comments that you made at someone, uncontrollable tears that you shed at an inopportune moment, being so distracted whilst cooking that the food got burnt, having a perpetually tired look on your face that just won’t go away. Perhaps your problem was so significant that you even contemplated ending your life. Walking around hunched over due to the weight of the world on your shoulders. At that point, making lemonade was the las thing on your mind.

That problem was a dark cloud that followed you everywhere you went. That problem was everything.

You see sometimes, we run into the kinds of trials that act on us more than we act on them. These are the kinds of trials that threaten and often succeed in making us very bitter.

A Bitter Old Saint

In our passage this morning we encounter a bitter, old, saint who was encountering the kinds of trials that we are talking about; the kind that she couldn’t conceal.

Her name is Naomi.

Finding The Antidote For Bitterness

I want us to consider her life and discover in God’s dealings with her an antidote for bitterness. We shall proceed with three headings. 1) God’s bitter dealing. 2) Naomi’s bitter feeling. And 3) a bitter path to blessing.

1. God’s Bitter Dealing

Firstly, God’s bitter dealing. So, several times in this passage, Naomi reveals her theology. She has no doubt in her mind what the source of her affliction and calamity is. There is no speculation in her tone! No “Perhaps”, or “maybe”. She believes that she is where she is because God put her there.

Naomi believes that she is where she is because God put her there.

Naomi’s Belief

So observe in verse 20 she says: “the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me”. Also in verse 21 she makes three statements. She says: “the Lord has brought me back empty.” Then she says, “the Lord has testified against me”, and then she says, “the Almighty has brought calamity upon me”.

Now earlier when she spoke to her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, about going back to Moab – trying to convince them to return – she said, in the las part of Ruth 1:13 if you will look back there with me. She says that, “the hand of the Lord has gone out against me”.

So, five times in this chapter Naomi rehearses her belief, that God was behind all her calamity. It was the Lord who had dealt with her bitterly. It was the Lord who had brought her back empty. By calamity, Naomi is speaking about what transpires in the first five verses of this book. So turn back to verse 1 and let us see God’s bitter dealing with Naomi.

Naomi’s Calamity

Ruth 1:1-5:

“In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. ² The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. ³ But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. ⁴ These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, ⁵ and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”

They fled to Moab to escape famine in the land – obviously hoping for good fortune to be theirs. However, Naomi’s husband dies, and then ten years later her two sons also die. So verse 5 put’s quite a fine point on it when it says that statement: “the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”

It’s like another way of saying that Naomi had been dealt a crushing blow. She had been reduced to dust and ashes. She had been rendered one of the most vulnerable people in that society: an heirless, poor widow.

All this was dealt to her by God; God put her there.

Naomi’s Hope In Leaving Israel

In leaving for Moab to escape famine, Naomi and her family may have had in mind Abraham’s story in Genesis 12:10.

Parallels to Abraham?

In Genesis 12:10 Abraham also faces a famine and he flees to Egypt. And so they may have thought, “We are really being like our patriarch Abraham and our story will be the same as his”.

Genesis 12:10 says: “Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land”. In that story Abraham came back from Egypt very full. In Genesis 12:16 we are told that Pharaoh “dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.”

We all want to soar like Abraham, but sometimes God ordains for us to suffer like Job.

So when Abraham leaves Egypt, he leaves with plenty of wealth and his whole family is intact. Perhaps this is what Elimelech and Naomi hoped would be their story.

Perhaps they hoped that God would treat them just as Pharaoh had treated Abraham in his sojourn in Egypt.

God clearly had other plans.

Parallels to Job?

In many ways Naomi’s story parallels not that of the patriarch Abraham, but that of the patriarch Job. In fact some have argued that Naomi is the female version of Job.

Some have argued that Naomi is the female version of Job.

Job too lost family and property in a series of God-ordained calamities. Listen to the similarities between Job’s words and Naomi’s words. Job 27:2 says this: “As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter”.

We all want to soar like Abraham, but sometimes God ordains for us to suffer like Job.

Suffering Saints

How Naomi sees this – that God put her where she is – is how the saints have always understood their suffering. The saints always rightly see suffering as something that has come from God. They see God as sovereign over their suffering.

The saints always rightly see suffering as something that has come from God. They see God as sovereign over their suffering.

In The Old Testament

Joseph, for example, clearly understood his perilous journey to power in Egypt as a sovereign work of God. His journey was full of danger and betrayal and a stint in prison. This is how Joseph sees it in Genesis 45:5 when his brothers who almost killed him and through him in a pit and sold him and led him down a path of danger and misery, when they come to him.

He says: “God sent me before you to preserve life”. A pit, slavery, prison, Joseph looks at all of that, “God sent me”. Job 1:21 he says, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away”. It’s also the language of the Psalms in many places.

In Psalm 88:6-7 we read this:

“You have put me in the depths of the pit,
    in the regions dark and deep.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
    and you overwhelm me with all your waves.”

In The New Testament

The Apostle Paul in the New Testament says of some of his own afflictions that “a thorn was given me in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12) “a messenger of Satan to harass me”, to perfect me. That was given to me by God.

He says this to the Philippian church. In Philippians 1:29. “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake”.

A Right View Of Suffering

Dear saint, is this how you view your suffering? Do you clearly understand the truth that God not only ordains our joys, he has also ordained our sorrows?

Do you ultimately ascribe bitter events to God’s sovereignty? You should. The Bible teaches you to.

Do you realise that some of God’s dealings with us will be sweet, but some of his dealings with us will be bitter. Job loss. Death of a spouse, or a child, or a parent, or a friend. Barrenness, prolonged sickness, a difficult marriage, troublesome children, chronic illness, poverty.

Do you ultimately ascribe these bitter events to God’s sovereignty? You should. The Bible teaches you to.

Finding Comfort In God’s Sovereignty

Now there are some who find virtue in trying to shield God from the charge of ordaining our suffering. They think that it is comforting to tell suffering saints that God has nothing to do with their suffering – it is all Satan’s doing. That is not comforting at all.

Because it tells me that God couldn’t do anything about my suffering. That there is another power, a power that is bent on my destruction, that is ultimately behind my suffering. That is a horrific thought. It creates more problems in my soul than it resolves.

When I know that the sorrow that comes into my life is apportioned to me by God – and that the God who apportioned this sorrow is wise, loving and good – that becomes a solid rock upon which I can stand. And a soft pillow upon which I can lay my head to sleep.

Secondly, let us note Naomi’s bitter feeling.

2. Naomi’s Bitter Feeling

At the heart of our passage is Naomi’s bitterness. She is bitter with God because God has dealt bitterly with her. Those of you who have any experience with bitterness of soul know that it is no picnic. It means to feel hurt, to feel angry, sometimes even resentful of life. It means to have a revulsion and a distaste for the reality that you find yourself in.

Naomi feels deeply hurt by God and she makes no secret about it.

Naomi feels deeply hurt by God. She is grieved by the circumstances that God has ordained for her. And she makes no secret about it. So observe, Ruth 1:19 when they return.

Is This Naomi?

“And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” The they who are returning here is Naomi and Ruth, her daughter-in-law.

As soon as they arrive the town comes alive with shock, surprise, wonder. It was stirred because of them. Everything stopped, the shops closed, people came out to the streets. The women come and they ask a loaded question, “Is this Naomi?”

It is highly likely that the marks of suffering, poverty, sorrow were all showing.

It’s likely that the town’s women are surprised to see her after so long – that’s why they ask the question. It’s been 10 years since she and her husband and two sons left – at least 10 years.

But also it’s likely that she looks nothing like her old self. It is highly likely that the marks of suffering, poverty, sorrow were all showing. It was obviously clear that her husband and sons were not with her.

Ruth & Naomi Were Extremely Vulnerable

Then you see in Israel there were four categories of people who were considered most vulnerable. These were the marginalised, these were the ones God said need extra special care. The orphan, the stranger, the widow and the poor.

Both are widowed, both are poor, and one of them is a stranger. You could not think of a more pitiful sight.

In Naomi and Ruth there is a convergence of three of those categories. Both are widowed, both are poor, and one of them is a stranger. You could not think of a more pitiful sight. And so they ask, “Is this Naomi?”

Naomi swiftly and in poetic fashion responds to their question. Observe Ruth 1:20″

^“She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”

From Pleasant To Bitter

She is playing on words here. Her name, Naomi, literally means pleasant or sweet. She sees nothing pleasant or sweet about herself and her life. So she opts for a name that more fits how she feels. “Call me Mara”, meaning bitter. “Don’t call me pleasant! Call me bitter.”

She wants to be identified by her calamities. She wants to be defined by her bitterness.

She wants to be identified by her calamities. She wants to be defined by her bitterness. She traces her bitterness to two things: she says God has emptied her and secondly she says God was testifying against her.

Look again at verse 21. She says, “I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

She is saying “The Lord emptied me when he took my husband and two sons. The Lord is judging me, he has risen up as a witness against me. He has specifically identified me as a target for his arrows. He is making a statement about me as a person, by brining affliction and calamity upon me. Therefore, please, don’t call me pleasant, call me bitter”.

This is a voice of bitterness, is it not?

Is God Punishing Naomi?

Now there really isn’t any indication in our passage or in the book or Ruth that God was punishing Naomi for some sin she had committed. It is true that sometimes there are some calamities that come into our lives as an immediate consequence of our sin. However, in Naomi’s case, no such sin is hinted at.

Yes, God ordained her suffering as he does ours, but no, God was not judging her. God was not making a statement about her moral purity.

Bitterness Can Affect Us Dramatically

But this is how bitterness with God’s painful providences can affect us.

It leads us to assume the worst about what God is doing in our lives, to think hard thoughts of God.

It can lead us to loathe ourselves, to see ourselves as some kind of cursed creatures. It blinds us to God’s daily mercies; it casts a shadow over all of life.

It tempts us to develop new identities as ‘the one God hates’, or ‘the one who was made for suffering’, or ‘the one for whom nothing good ever happens’, or ‘the one who is just doomed to failure’, or ‘the one who will never marry’, or ‘the one who will always be poor’, or ‘the one who will just never have any children’. And so on, and so forth.

Dear saint, are you bitter with God? Has God hurt you? Do you feel like a target to God? You don’t have to believe the voice of bitterness – it is preaching a false gospel to you. God actually has good designs for the painful providences he sends our way.

Which brings us to our final point. Number three, a bitter path to blessing.

3. A Bitter Path to Blessing

What Naomi does not realise is that her story is embedded in a larger story. God is working on something and Naomi’s suffering and calamity plays a special role in it.

Yes, Naomi is on a bitter path, but it is not a bitter path to nowhere. It is actually a bitter path to blessing.

Naomi is on a bitter path, but it is not a bitter path to nowhere. It is actually a bitter path to blessing.

Part of A Bigger Plan

So, look at the first line of Ruth 1:1. we are told that these events happened, “in the days when the judges ruled”. So the events of the book of Ruth happened during the period of the Judges. The supreme crime of the book of Judges is actually highlighted in the last verse of the book of Judges.

Judges 21:25 “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

That phrase is repeated three or four times in the book of Judges. That there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. There was chaos, there was hostility, there was calamity in Israel because there was no king in Israel and everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.

God is on the path of supplying Israel with a king and Naomi’s life, unbeknownst to her, is actually part of that plan.

Naomi Overlooks Ruth At This Point

When Naomi in her bitterness says, “the Lord has brought me back empty”, it’s true, but not all the way true. Naomi is not totally empty because she comes back with Ruth. Ruth loves her fiercely and Ruth is loyal to her. Ruth is the one who said, “wherever you go I will go… Wherever you die I will die” (Ruth 1:16-17). “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

“I am not leaving you.”

Ruth is actually the one ordained by God to bring blessing to Naomi, blessing to Israel as a nation, and to the world as a whole.

But at this point now, she doesn’t think very much of Ruth or see much in her. Little does she know, that Ruth is actually the one ordained by God to bring blessing to Naomi, blessing to Israel as a nation, and to the world as a whole.

God’s Providence In Action

So our passage is book-ended by a statement about their return. Ruth 1:19 we are told where they returned: “the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem”.

Then at the end of the passage, Ruth 1:22, we are told when they returned. “So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.”

So, they are back to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. In God’s providence they return at precisely the right time and God’s plan to bring blessing unfolds in amazing fashion.

The Blessing Unfolds

In the next chapter Ruth goes out gleaning and just happens to glean in the field of the man called Boaz. Boaz just happens to come along. Boaz just happens to notice Ruth. He just happens to be favourably disposed towards her.

Ruth goes back home, tells Naomi about this and it just happens that Boaz is a relative and therefore a candidate to marry Ruth. Boaz just happens to be interested in Ruth and goes out of his way to marry her.

In chapter 4 Boaz goes ahead and marries Ruth and everything for her and Naomi changes. And then a boy is born, to Ruth and Boaz. Ruth, who could not have a baby with her first husband, now she has a baby with Boaz – a boy called Obed.

The Coming of The Redeemer

So jump now to Ruth 4:14-17 and see how this story concludes.

“Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! ¹⁵ He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” ¹⁶ Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. ¹⁷ And the women of the neighbourhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed”, in Hebrew, servant. “He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.”

The attention is all on Naomi.

Naomi who was empty has become full again. She has a family redeemer and an heir in Boaz. She has a daughter-in-law who is more to her than seven sons. She has a ‘son’, Obed – a restorer of life and a nourisher – she is nursing him. Her economic situation has changed. Her and Ruth are no longer the pitiful picture of little, poor, vulnerable women as they were before. Truly her bitter path has brought blessing to her.

But that is not all! Her bitter path will bring blessing to the nation of Israel.

Notice that Obed is the father of Jesse who is the father of David. Naomi does not realise it, but she is legally the great-great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king. The cry of the book of Judges for a king in Israel will be fulfilled through her.

Naomi’s great-grandson, David, would reign well and establish the kingdom of Israel as a powerhouse in the region. He would bless Israel with his righteous rule.

Naomi’s sojourn in Moab was not a waste.

Naomi’s sojourn in Moab was not a waste – because it was the means that God used and ordained to go and fetch Ruth and bring her to Israel where she would become the great grandmother of David.

But this is not all either. Naomi’s bitter path would ultimately bring blessing not just to herself and to Israel, but to the entire world. Because down through the lineage of David, another king would emerge.

Naomi would also be the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of Israel’s greater king, Jesus Christ.

Jesus’s Bitter Path

Jesus who is the root and the offspring of David. Jesus too would be born right there in Bethlehem, where they came, to another poor girl called Mary. He too would walk a bitter path of poverty and suffering in his earthly life.

Jesus would voluntarily drink a bitter cup of God’s judgement to purchase salvation for us all.

Jesus would voluntarily drink a bitter cup of God’s judgement in order to purchase salvation for people from every tongue, tribe and nation, and redeem them from experiencing eternal bitterness; of being separated from God and suffering his wrath.

On the cross, God would deal bitterly with Jesus. He would pour out his full wrath on him so that all who would trust in Jesus would know God’s blessing eternally.

By his death, Jesus would become the first-born over many brethren, the captain of our salvation. He would by his bitter suffering gain a bride, a family of adopted sons and daughters.

Naomi went out full and came back empty. Jesus who would go to the cross empty, would come back full. He would make many to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with him.

Why Is This Story In The Bible?

So, what is the conclusion of the matter? Why is this book in the Bible? Why is this story there?

It’s to tell us that God has good designs for the painful providences that he sends our way. Whatever God ordains is right. He does all things well. He has good reasons for why he afflicts us with sorrow and tragedy.

God is firmly in charge of our lives. He is guiding and governing our suffering for his glory and our good.

Sometimes he allows us to see the sense behind it. Other times he doesn’t. But that’s why we have stories like this one – in order to learn to trust that God is firmly in charge of our lives and he is guiding and governing our suffering for his glory and our good.

Truly he works all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Some words of application.

Avoid The Greater Suffering

Are you here and you’re not a believer? Trust in Naomi’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Jesus. He is the only way to escape the greatest suffering that any soul can endure – the suffering of being separated from God for all eternity.

You don’t have to go to hell. You don’t have to know eternal bitterness.

The Good News

Jesus endured bitterness on the cross so that you could, by faith today, be blessed forever in him. If you want to know more about this good news, this gospel, by which we are saved, let me invite you to talk to any of the members of this church – or talk to any of the elders of this church – and we would be happy to explain to you the way of salvation and explain to you the good news of Jesus Christ.

To the saints, I have three words of application to you as individuals. One, because God has good designs for our sufferings, let us patiently endure it and wait on him with faith and hope.

Discover The Grace of Lament

Secondly, in the midst of our suffering, let us learn to lament. Don’t complain about God ‘behind his back’. Go and complain to his face, as it were.

Let us learn to lament. Don’t complain about God ‘behind his back’. Go and complain to his face.

There is plenty of scriptural warranted examples for biblical lament. Discover the grace of lament. Whenever you feel bitterness rising up in your heart, take that as an index and an indicator – it is time to go to God and lament.

Don’t Be Blind To Daily Mercies

Thirdly, do not allow bitterness to blind you to God’s daily mercies in your life. The scripture in Lamentations 3 that says that God’s mercies are new every morning is true (Lamentations 3:22-23). Even in the midst of your suffering there are many little graces and mercies that God continues to extend to you. Look for them! And turn them into praise and thanksgiving to God.

And finally, I want to speak to us as a church, corporately as EBC members.

Let us learn to massage gospel hope and gospel identity into each other’s souls.

Remember Who We Are In Christ

One, let us help the suffering among us not to define themselves by their suffering. Let us learn to massage gospel hope and gospel identity into each other’s souls. You see now, in bitterness, we will lose sight of God’s mercy and grace. We will want to wallow in destructive self-pity.

I am not my suffering. I am a child of God, redeemed in Christ Jesus. That’s my core identity.

As a church, it is our job to step in and remind one another who we are in Christ. So when I say, “Don’t call me pleasant, call me bitter”, remind me who I am in Christ.

That’s not who I am. That’s not my identity. I am not my suffering. I am a child of God, redeemed in Christ Jesus. That’s my core identity, that’s my eternal identity, and one moment in glory will make up for all the suffering that I have known in this world.

I should not define myself by my bitterness, and it is our job as a church to help one another do that.

And secondly, and lastly, let us work to alleviate one another’s suffering to the best of our ability. Also to praise God for all the ways that this congregation has surrounded suffering saints in our midst – myself included – and all the ways that you have helped us to bear the burden: the burden of loss, the burden of tragedy.

EBC members, let me encourage you to abound more and more in this.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray.

Our heavenly father, we thank you for the ways in which you have blessed us in Jesus. We thank you for the good designs that you have for our sufferings. How we pray that you would grant us to suffer well. That you would grant us to suffer patiently. That you would grant us to keep our eye on you as our sovereign, loving, wise God.

We pray that you would protect our hearts from bitterness, and grant that even in the midst of suffering, we would continue to spread the aroma of Christ. Strengthen as a church to be a community that blesses suffering saints.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen