#DailyDevotion Abraham’s Descendents Are Those Who Believe The Lord

Ruth 1¹⁰“No,” they told her, “we’re going with you to your people.” ¹¹“Go on back, my daughters,” Naomi said. “Why should you go with me? Do I have any more sons in my womb who could marry you? ¹²Go on back, my daughters, go! I’m too old to be a man’s wife. Even if I did say, ‘I still have hope,’ even if I were a man’s wife tonight and gave birth to sons, ¹³would you then wait till they grew up and stay single just for them? Don’t do it, my daughters, because I feel very sorry for you that the LORD has sent me so much trouble.” ¹⁴Again they burst into loud weeping. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung to her. ¹⁵“See,” Naomi said, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. You go back too! Follow your sister-in-law!” ¹⁶“Don’t urge me to leave you, to go back and not be with you,” Ruth answered. “I will go where you go and stay where you stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. ¹⁷I will die where you die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD punish me if anything but death separates you and me!” ¹⁸When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she didn’t say any more to her. ¹⁹So the two went on until they came to Bethlehem.

Naomi, whose name means ‘the gracious’, tries to talk her daughters in law into returning to their own country. She is old and they aren’t particularly young either, not young enough to wait for Naomi to get remarried and have boys they could marry. She feels sorry for them for she believes the Lord has sent her so much trouble. But we must remember, she is where she is at because Israel a whole has rebelled against the Lord by worshiping other gods and following their ways instead of the Lord’s ways. We don’t know the extant Naomi and her family followed the Lord; she certainly knew of him. They did however leave the Promised Land for greener pastures trying to escape the punishment he had laid upon Israel for their sin.

Eventually Orpha returns back to her people with Naomi’s blessing but Ruth will not go. She will not depart from her mother in law. We see this is the Lord’s doing. Naomi has heard the word of the Lord from Naomi and her family. Whatever word she has heard, she apparently believed by the power of the Holy Spirit. She does not want to return to her family, her people or her gods. No, Ruth tells her mother in law, “I will go where you go and stay where you stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. ¹⁷I will die where you die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD punish me if anything but death separates you and me!” So the word of God movea Ruth to be faithful to her mother in law and faithful to him. It is her intent to part of Israel now.

We see the Lord at work here because he is going to work through the law he has given the Israelites to take this Moabite woman to be the vessel through whom he would bring salvation to the world. In the law, a wife of an Israelite, to whom no children were born, would marry the nearest Israelite relative to produce an heir so the name of the family would not disappear. Since Naomi’s sons died without issue what was her family’s would go to the child Ruth would bear by the closet relative to Naomi’s husband. So while her family abandoned the Lord by going to Moab, the Lord would be faithful by replacing Naomi’s family in Israel with a Moabite woman’s child.

This faithful to the Lord Moabite woman, Ruth, would be the grandmother of David through whom the savior of the world, Jesus Christ would be born. Jesus had chosen her to be descended from. While many of his male ancestors would not be faithful to the Lord, this foreign woman would be faithful to him as the Lord of Israel.

Perhaps you were born into a Christian family. The question is, are you a faithful Israelite or are you like the Israelites of Ruth’s day and Christian in name only? Do you have the faith of Ruth and believe what God has told you about Jesus and abandon all for him or is your faith in the world?

Heavenly Father, grant that through your word, your son Jesus Christ may be conceived in our hearts and we may be faithful to him as your servant Ruth was and may his life be lived out in our own. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.