The Setting

Now it came to pass in the days that the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land.

Ruth 1:1

In the last chapter we looked at these opening words of this great book of the Old Testament, words that set for us both the focus and the context of this book of the Old Testament. You'll recall that we noted one or two things about this book, which is sandwiched for us between the Book of Judges and the first Book of Samuel, two of the great historical narratives of the Old Testament.

The Book of Ruth is one of the shortest of the word of God, and on the surface, it seems just to be occupied with a very simple story and with a very simple romantic tale that centred around this woman from Moab. And yet I suggested that here in the Book of Ruth we have the Gospel summarised for us as we see this woman who was brought up far away from the land of covenant blessing and promise, brought into the bond of the covenant and into a relationship with God.

We also noted that the Book of Ruth speaks to us of God's providences in the lives of his people. He allows some sad providences, some sad situations, some difficult circumstances into the experience of his people. Elimelech and Naomi, with their sons Mahlon and Chilion went from Bethlehem to Moab, and there Naomi saw very hard things as she stood some years later beside the graves of her husband and her two sons. We are reminded here of the ways in which God visits his people with hard things in order to bring them to himself.

We are reminded too of how the purposes of God are worked out through all these providences. God accomplishes his eternal design in and through the history of this world and the experiences of men and women in it. And none of these situations, none of these circumstances are wasted. Every one of them works for good, as they worked together for the good of Ruth and the good of Naomi, and at length for the good of the whole world. Unknown to her in these days in Moab, Ruth was to find a place in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. It was from her that the Saviour was to be descended.

We noted that the Book of Ruth is set for us in a particular historical period. All we are told is this: "It came to pass in the days when the judges ruled". The period of the judges, of course, covered a long period of time, following the death of Joshua. There was no king in Israel in those days, so God raised up these judges -- Gideon and Samson and Deborah, and other great men and women of God, to lead and to guide and to rule his own people. The Book of Ruth is set in these days, perhaps, as I suggested, quite early in this period, since Boaz is the son of Rahab. But more important is the detail we are given of the way in which this period was characterised: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

In the manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, there was no mark or delineation between the books of the Old Testament. The manuscripts ran on without a break, so that if you were handling the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, you would read straight from the last verse of the Book of Judges to the first verse of the Book of Ruth, so that it would read like this: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Now it came to pass in the days that the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land."

I think that it is important to pause there because it is so vitally important that we realise where this book is set and the backdrop against which the events of this book take place. The Book of Ruth is set in the days of the judges. The days of the judges are days when there was a spirit of independence from God, when men and women in their generations were saying, "We will not do as God says, we will do what is right in our own eyes". The days of the judges are days when men and women generally have rejected the claims of God's word, and the claims of God's law; the only thing that is going to modify their behaviour is their own self-determinating will. It was a time of situation ethics. And the result is calamitous. Time and again in the Book of Judges, God delivers his people into the hands of their enemies, to teach them that no man can set himself up in autonomy or independence against God and prosper. God delivers his people into the hands of their enemies to bring them low, to bring them to repentance, to bring them to himself. And they cry to God and God raises the judges who deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. But no sooner are they delivered than they are back , back to this independent spirit and this self-willed spirit that is the hallmark of the period.

The Book of Ruth tells us that it was in these days that God sent this famine. And it is this famine that precipitates the whole of the story of Ruth, that sets the ball rolling if you like. It is this famine that leads to Elimelech and Naomi going with their families to Moab. It is this famine that sets off the chain of events that is going to lead to the graves in Moab, the decision to return, Ruth's coming back to Bethlehem, her coming into the fields of Boaz, her gleaning there, her marriage and at last her child and her family, and the blessing of God upon her. And yet it is possible to pass very quickly over these words. I think, however, we need to pause at them.

Most of us are strangers to famine, and the whole experience of famine, and I trust that we always will be. But you cannot read the Bible without coming across instances of famine time and time again. For instance, when Joseph was Governor of Egypt, his brothers went to Egypt looking for food because there was a famine. Similarly, in those days of self-will autonomy, there was a famine. And I am going to pause there, because I believe that there is always a famine when there is independence from God. I believe that it is a principle of Biblical

teaching and of Biblical theology that the moment a man moves away from the path of God's truth and the path of God's will, he is on the road to famine. It is absolutely clear in the word of God that there is no bread for anyone who walks the path of disobedience from God. That is precisely the point that is underlined for us here. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And that was when the famine came. And it was that famine and their reaction to that famine that brought Elimelech and Naomi with their sons to the land of Moab.

The Famine: God's Judgement

I think that it is important to remind ourselves that God told his people time and time again throughout the Old Testament, that famine was one way by which he would judge them for their sins. This famine represented just such a judgement from God upon this particular generation.

Please do not misunderstand me. I know that there are places in the world that are ravaged by famine and by lack of resources, by lack of food and lack of water, places in the world that are not as fortunate as we are. People point to these phenomena and they say to us, "How can you believe in a God if this is true?" I believe in the God of the Bible , and the God of the Bible says to me that he will meet the needs of everyone that lives. And the God of the Bible tells me that the world has sufficient resources to meet the needs of every man and woman and child. And God has made us stewards of the bounty and the richness and the provision with which he has favoured us. The reason why there are many people in the world who have nothing is because of our lack of stewardship and biblical handling of the vast resources that God has given us. The fact of famine is not an argument against God, it is an argument against ourselves!

But I am coming back to the Bible, and back to God's programme for the education of his own people in the Old Testament, in which he made it abundantly clear that famine represented His judgement on the sins of the nation. Do you remember that he intimated as much to Adam? The moment Adam fell, and broke covenant with God at the very dawn of human history, God said "Cursed is the ground, for your sake". The garden of Eden had been a place easy to work, a place whose resources yielded everything that Adam and Eve needed to survive on, but sin destroyed the very metabolism of the creation and the very richness of the ground. Now a curse lay upon it, to the extent that the whole creation even now groans because of man's sin (Romans 8:22). And with the unfolding of God's revelation throughout the Old Testament, we come back to this principle time and time again. God's people sin against Him. What does he do? He sends them a famine. He cuts off the rain, and he cuts off the staff of bread, and he cuts off the very resources that they needed to survive. And all this was because of how far from him they had actually gone.

God made this explicit in Deuteronomy 28, where God sets before his people the blessings of obedience and the curses on their disobedience. "If you do not listen," he says, "then this is what is going to happen. You'll carry your seed into the field, much seed and you'll gather but little in. The locusts will consume it. You will plant vineyards and dress them but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes because the worms will eat them. You'll beget sons and daughters but you'll not enjoy them: they'll go into captivity. The trees and the fruit of your land will be consumed by the locust" (Deut 28:39-42). Why is he going to do that? "All these curses shall come upon you because you did not obey the voice of the Lord God" (verse 45). There is, you see, this direct relationship between the disobedience and the famine. They were going to be industrious in the field but would take little back; sowing their seed for little return; working the ground but nothing to eat; diligent, industrious and starving, because they had not listened to the voice of their God.

It is important to see the link between cause and effect here. When they do not obey, they have no food. And where they reject the claims of God's truth, there will be a famine in the land. What's made it so? It is the disobedience of the people. The same phenomenon is highlighted in Jeremiah 34:17. God accuses his people of failing to listen, and to proclaim his word. So, God says, "I proclaim liberty to you -- to the sword, to pestilence and to famine!"

In 2 Samuel 21 we are told that there was a famine in the land for three years -- year after year after year. In the third year, David enquired of the Lord. I guess he should have gone the first year, but he didn't. And God sent a famine the second year and he still did not go. It was only in the third year that David went and enquired of the Lord and he said to the Lord, "Why is this famine happening to us?" God said, "Because Saul slew the Gibeonites". That's why. This famine is directly traceable to the disobedience of God's covenant people. And in the Old Testament, God educated his people regarding the seriousness and solemnity of sin by sending a famine on the land.

But the prophet Amos talks about another famine: "In those days," says Amos, "I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread or of water but of hearing the Word of God" (Amos 8:11).

And that is the worst possible kind of famine. God says that because of the sins of the people, he is going to keep back not the rains from the heaven, not the goodness of the soil, but his very Word. The people have disobeyed, so now they will starve.. So here is this fundamental principle of Old Testament theology: that the sin of rebellion and disobedience of the people of God led to starvation, both physical and spiritual.

And there is a sense in which it is the same still. The moment we move away from the path of obedience is the moment our souls begin to starve. Is this not what we read in Psalm 106:15, when God gave the people their request, but sent leanness into their souls? God says about his people that he had let them out of Egypt and he had guided them and redeemed them, but they rebelled against him. There is this incorrigible tendency of the human heart to rebel against God, and the result is barrenness and leanness.

If you are not born again, your soul is starved. Jesus says to you on the pages of the Gospel that supposing we gained the world and lost our soul through our sin, it would profit us nothing. That is why Jesus is compared to bread, to food, and it is why the offer of the Gospel is portrayed so often (such as in Isaiah 55:1) as an invitation to a banquet. There is a feast to which starving souls can come, and there is bread from Heaven, which starving souls can eat.

But even for those of us who profess to love the Lord, is it not the case that often we too experience famine, which can be traced to our sin and to our self-will? Listen to God's lament in Psalm 81: "O that my people would listen to me; that Israel would walk in my ways ... He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat" (verses 13, 15). My Christian friend, we must learn that these great words were spoken of God's people. We must learn that the moment we walk any other road but the road of God's path and God's will is the moment famine begins to afflict our souls. When a man cannot eat he becomes weak. He loses his strength and can do nothing. It is all too possible for a Christian man or woman to stray far, far away from God.

Maybe even as you read this, you can recall a time in your experience when you were far more zealous and dedicated enthusiastic for God than you are now. Perhaps you are saying to yourself, "Why is this famine in my soul? Why is everything so barren and arid and fruitless and so dry?" God says you must trace the reason back to your sin, to your own lack of discipline and obedience?.

More than anything else, the modern evangelical church needs men and women who are infused by God, who are on fire by God, who have one great burning zeal and determination to walk the path of obedience to God's will and God's truth. And it needs men and women who know that when their souls are lean, something is wrong.

There were many places in the history of the Church, where vast congregations gathered to hear the Word of God. These places are empty now. A famine has come; and it has come because the church drifted so far from the path of God's truth that God plucked his candlestick away, just as he did in the case of Ephesus (Revelation 2:5). You know, the Epistle to the Ephesians does not contain even a hint that anything was wrong in that congregation; yet by the time John writes Revelation -- within a generation -- the Gospel has been modified and the witness of the church compromised. God is threatening to remove the light of Gospel truth and Gospel preaching.

Can we not see the same thing evident in the history of the church of Christ in Scotland and in England and throughout our nation? Are there not many places that once burned with zeal and enthusiasm for the things of God but there is nothing there now. God said "My spirit will not always strive with man" (Genesis 6:3). He sent the famine and removed the blessing. The famine of Ruth 1:1 spoke of God's judgement. It spoke of the people's sin, their distance from God.

The Famine: God's Call

But the famine was not simply a register of the fact that something was wrong; it was a call from God to get things right! It was a trumpet sound -- God's judgement was in the earth so that men would fear him and return to him and renew their relationship with him.

What happened following the threatened curses of Deuteronomy 28? God renewed the covenant with his people in Deuteronomy 29! And what was the essential thing? "Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do" (Deuteronomy 29:9). Sin brings adversity; obedience brings prosperity!

This is not the prosperity Gospel of some American televangelists, who preach riches and material possessions as the reward for faith in Christ. No; the prosperity God promises is a spiritual one. Just as the famine highlighted a spiritual need, so repentance and obedience would lead to spiritual renewal and revival.

Listen to what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. The one thing that will permit a soul to enter Heaven is obedience to God's will. "Many will come to me," he says, "in that day and say 'Lord, Lord, Lord we prophesied, and we cast out devils and we performed miracles and we did many wonderful works" (Matthew 7:22). And he will turn to them and say, "Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord' will enter into my Kingdom, but he who does the will of my father who is in Heaven." Do you see the emphasis? It is not on prophesying, or on preaching, or on casting out devils. It's not about performing miracles. Important as these things are, Jesus says you can do them all and be lost.

The apostle Paul reminded himself of that constantly. Congregation planter and evangelist though he was, he said that he fought "not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27). It is possible, says the New Testament, to have a life that has all the apparent evidences of saving grace and Christian piety, and yet be a stranger to grace and to God. Our usefulness in the kingdom is no guarantee of our belonging to it.

You see the call of the Gospel is to men and women who know that obedience matters. And they know that when they fail themselves, the one place to which they must come, is to the God against whom they have sinned. David sinned grievously against God, yet in Psalm 51 he comes with his broken heart, with repentance, with grief and hatred of his sin, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it, to the God he has offended. He knows that burnt offerings will not suffice (Psalm 51:16); religious observance is not enough. He knows that he needs to get right with God and begin all over again to love and serve the Lord.

That was the purpose of the famine. It was the voice of God speaking loudly to the souls of his people., calling them to return and repent. Yet for the most part they failed to hear, and failed to obey. And, as we shall see, they paid a high price for continuing obstinately in the path of sin.

© Iain D. Campbell 2001