Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number two from your hardback hymnal,
number two. Let's all stand together. Number
two, love divine, all loves excelling. ? Love divine, all loves excelling
? ? Joy of heaven, come now, earn down ? ? Fix in us thy humble
dwelling ? ? All thy faithful mercies crown ? ? Jesus, thou
art all compassion ? Pure, unbounded love thou art. Visit us with thy salvation. Enter every trembling heart. ? Breathe, oh breathe, thy loving
Spirit ? ? Into every troubled breast ? ? Let us all in thee
inherit ? ? Let us find that second rest ? ? Take away our
bent to sinning ? ? Alpha and Omega be ? ? And of faith as
its beginning ? ? Set our hearts at liberty ? ? Come Almighty
to deliver ? ? Let us all thy life receive ? ? Suddenly return
and never ? ? Nevermore thy temples leave ? ? Thee we would be always
blessing ? ? Serve thee as thy hosts above ? ? Pray and praise
thee without ceasing ? ? Glory in thy perfect love ? ? Finish
then thy new creation ? Let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee. ? Changed from glory into glory
? ? Till in heaven we take our place ? ? Till we cast our crowns
before thee ? ? Lost in wonder, love, and praise ? Please be
seated. Good morning. We're going to be back in the
book of Ruth this morning if you'd like to turn with me in
your Bibles to Ruth chapter 1. I love hymns that are prayers. And that's what we just, that's
what we just did. We joined our hearts together
in song, but we were offering a prayer to the Lord, to Him,
to manifest His love and rejoicing in the love that He's shown us
in Christ. Greater love hath no man than
this, that He lay down His life for His friends. And there is
the evidence of God's love, God's so love that He gave. hearing his love not that we
love God we don't measure love by the depth and sincerity of
our love toward God but the the sincerity of his love toward
us and what what magnificent love he's had if anything does
inspire us to love him it'll be because he first loved us
amen All right, let's pray together
and ask the Lord's blessings. Our Heavenly Father, such love
divine, such love excelling. Lord, we stand before you ashamed
of how weak and how fickled our love is, but we stand in thy
presence hopeful, and confident that our salvation is determined
by your perfect love for us. And Lord, we pray that you would
increase our love. We pray that you would increase
our faith. We pray that you would send your Holy Spirit and power
and open the gates of heaven and enable us to gaze upon thy
glory And as we just sang, to cast those golden crowns at thy
feet, singing honor and glory and praise be unto the Lamb that
sitteth upon the throne. Lord, thank you for your word.
Give us spiritual eyes. Give us hearts to believe. Lord, forgive us for our sin.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Ruth chapter 1. Notice with me in verse 14, and
they lifted up their voice and wept again. They'd been weeping
as Naomi was speaking and trying to persuade Orpah and Ruth to
go back to Moab. They were weeping over the words
that Naomi was speaking. And here's the turning point
in verse 14, they lifted up their voice and they wept again. And
Orpah, who we know is the one who returned to Moab, kissed
her mother-in-law. But Ruth could claim under her. Orpah kissed Naomi, but Ruth
would not turn loose of Naomi. What is the difference? We continue
to see Orpah and Ruth as a picture of unbelief and of saving faith. I pray this morning the Lord
will put a spirit of grace in our hearts and cause us to cleave
unto Christ, to not be able to turn loose of Him. Orpah, we know, went back to
her people and to her gods. She was moved by Naomi's words. Her affections were moved with
sorrow and her motions were stirred. She went back to Moab weeping,
but back to Moab is exactly what she did. Not another word is mentioned
in God's word or as far as I know in any historical account of
Orpah. But we know from our own experience
that though she went back sorrowful, she soon got over it. She got
back into her life in Moab, and though she may have had fleeting
thoughts of Naomi and Ruth in her life, she was quite content
where she was. No doubt, Orpah was sincere.
as are many who are often moved by the gospel. Now I want you
to see Naomi as a type of Christ, and I want you to see her words
as a message of the gospel. She's been telling them about
Jehovah, about the God of Israel. about how he brought the children
of Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea and through the desert
and brought them safely into the promised land and how Joshua
and the tabernacle had divided the Jordan River and how God
had given them success in conquering the land and dividing it up and
all of these things having a gospel relevance. And these two young
ladies are listening very carefully, and now Orpah's given a chance
to believe or to return. And she does what is in her heart
to do. She goes back. Those who must have the Lord
Jesus Christ cleave to him. We have an example of Orpah in
the New Testament with the rich young ruler when the Lord confronted
him with the demands of the gospel. which is exactly what Naomi is
doing with Orpah. And when the Lord told the rich
young ruler to sell all that he had and to follow after Christ,
which is the demand of the gospel always, always. Now I'm not talking about uh
physically selling all your possessions and taking a vow of poverty and
and living as a as a monk in a monastery i'm talking about
putting everything down there it all belongs to the lord it's
all his whatever he would have you to do is what you would do
and uh and that's what the rich young ruler was not willing to
do his possessions were his god and the scripture says when the
lord gave him that command that he, like Orpah, turned from the
Lord and was sorrowful. He was sorrowful. Religious experiences can invoke
many emotions, and religious experiences can be life-changing, but In the end, those who don't
cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ end up back in Moab. And that's
what the rich young ruler did here, and that's what Orpah's
doing. And the Lord has given us this
in his word in order to show the difference between those
who he has given saving faith to, who cannot forsake Christ,
they must have him, they will cleave to him at all cost, and
those who count the cost and determine that the price is too
high, and they end up going back. In John chapter six, the Lord
Jesus Christ is speaking to what the Bible calls his disciples,
not the 12, but the word disciples here in John chapter six is used
to describe followers. There was a lot of people that
jumped on the bandwagon. They were excited about this
new prophet who had come to town and, and they were following
the enthusiasm of, of the, of the crowd. And then the Lord
laid out the demands of the gospel. He said, if you want to be my
disciples, you must be willing to deny yourself, deny that you
have anything to do with your salvation. Give to me all the
glory for having accomplished salvation all by myself. Take
up your cross. Identify yourself with the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You die, you die daily that you
might be made alive in Christ and follow after me. And the
Bible says that the disciples, those, that crowd said, this
is a hard saying. And in verse 66, it says many
of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. This
is a pattern. The gospel is declared. There
are some who will hear and they will weigh the cost of following
Christ. And like Orpah, they will kiss
the Lord with weeping and go back to Moab crying, but soon
settle back in to their old life. History of the gospel is filled
with orpahs. Those who might, after hearing
the gospel, think, well, what's in it for me? And the answer
to that question is eternal life, the forgiveness of sin, peace
with God, and much tribulation. You will be a stranger in this
world. You will live like Lot in Sodom,
whose righteous soul was vexed over the sin that was in that
city. You will be marked like Cain
and become a vagabond in this world. This world will not be
your home. You'll be a stranger to the people
of this world. Some of your enemies will be
of your own household. Oh yeah. And you can't ever go
back to Moab. And the rich young ruler and
Orpah heard these demands and they went back. They went back. this being moved emotionally
by the words of the gospel. And here's a word of warning.
Sometimes I fear that we might be looking for a feeling as evidence
of our salvation. And when the Lord does save,
there are some Very real feelings and emotions that come with that. But they come as a result of
looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, not looking for
those feelings. Feelings come and feelings go.
Feelings are deceiving. My only warrant is the Word of
God. None else is worth believing. We place our hope and our trust
and our faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed
in his word. And it's like one man said, he
said, when I look to Christ, the dove of peace flies into
my heart. But when I look for the dove
of peace, he flies away. And that's the way it works.
Orpah had some very real emotional feelings. that she experienced. But in the end, she ended up
going back to Moab. Look to Christ. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Rest the hope of your immortal
soul and your temporal life all on Him. And you will find that
feelings will come and feelings will go. but the hope of your salvation
will be sure and steadfast in an anchor that cannot be moved.
We're fickle people, aren't we? Emotionally, we're easily moved
one way or the other. And Orpah here is an example
of that. I can see her going all the way
back to Moab. They're traveling now between
Moab and Bethlehem, Judah. Through this, horrid wilderness
along the banks of the Dead Sea. And it's a reminder of sin and
death. And Orpah's thinking, this is
too hard, I'm gonna go back. And out of regret, just like,
a perfect example of this is not Judas, who kissed the Lord
when he forsook Him. and then went out in shame and
in guilt and in the depths of sorrow, hanged himself? Is this not an example? And we know that Judas was the
son of perdition. He was not chosen of God unto
salvation, but let me say this. Had Judas taking those 30 pieces
of silver and gone back to the Lord in repentance and in faith
and in brokenness and sorrow, the Lord would have forgiven
him. What did he do instead? He went back to the law. He went back to the Pharisees.
He tried to make up for his sin by throwing back the money to
the lawmongers. And then that not satisfying
him, he pays the ultimate debt of trying to atone for his sin.
through suicide. Is that not an example of feelings? Feelings? In Matthew chapter 21 we hear
about the city of Jerusalem being moved. We're going to look at
this in the next hour. And the people cried, Hosanna! Hosannas! Which means save us
now right now save us and a week later that same crowd is raising
their fist to heaven and crying crucify him crucify him you see
how fickle The kisses of Orpah, the kisses of Judas, the emotions
of those who hear the gospel and see Christ and want to engage
in the enthusiasm of that, but they don't cleave. They don't
cleave. Paul speaks of Hymenas and Alexander
who made a shipwreck of their faith and were delivered unto
Satan. Alexander the coppersmith who did him much evil and Demas
who loved this present world. These are all New Testament believers
or professors who had shown some emotional evidence at least of
their salvation but they ended up going back to Moab. They ended
up going back to Moab. I looked up the word kiss in
the Bible and it's very interesting that the very first time that
the word kiss is mentioned in the scriptures is when Jacob
was deceiving Isaac in being Esau. Do you remember that? Jacob
comes in and tries to pretend that he's his brother Esau and
he puts on the hair and the smell and Isaac says, the boy says,
Jacob, Isaac is blind. So Isaac says to Jacob, come
near unto me and kiss me. And Jacob did. It wasn't a kiss of affection,
it was a kiss of deceit. You see, unless we find ourselves
cleaving in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever emotional
demonstrations we show are deceitful. They're just deceitful. The second mention of the word
kiss in the Bible is found in Genesis chapter 31 when Jacob
left his father-in-law Laban with his children and with his
wives and with his flock and he flees at night and Laban gets
up the next morning and finds out that he's gone and Laban
sets out after Jacob and catches up to him. And the very first
thing that Laban says is you left without allowing me to kiss
my children. And then right after that, he
says, plus you stole my gods. And you read the whole story,
Laban was more concerned about losing his gods than he was about
kissing his children and grandchildren. But he used that phrase. deceitfully
to act as if he was really concerned with his affection for his children
when the only concern he had was to recover his gods. The third time that Kiss is mentioned
in the Bible is in 2 Samuel chapter 20. And the scripture says that
Joab took a man by the name of Amasa and held him by the beard
and drew him to himself as if he would kiss him while at the
same time he had a dagger in his hand and he put him, he killed
him. Pretending he was gonna kiss him, he killed him. Hey,
don't be deceived by kisses. Don't be deceived by your own
kisses. Those things are, that's a symbol
of our emotion, isn't it? Now the scripture does tell us
in, in Psalm 2 that we're to kiss
the Son. But here's what the Scripture
says in the Song of Solomon, let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth. Because I know his affections
are true. I know that he's not deceitful. I know that his emotions
are right. Mine are not. I can't trust them.
And that's the point that I'm trying to make here. Don't trust
your emotions. Don't trust your kisses. Don't
trust your feelings. Cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because those things are deceiving.
You know, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, the scripture
tells us. How can we know it? How can we
know our own hearts? And yet we continue to trust
in feelings, don't we? Orpah had feelings. She had emotions. She was weeping
as she left Naomi. But back to Moab is what she
did. In contrast to that, we find
Ruth. Let's go back to our text. They
lifted up their voice in verse 14. They wept again. They'd been
weeping. They'd been crying. These women were emotional. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law,
but Ruth, Ruth cleaved to her." You know, the first thing I remember,
I remember reminded of when thinking about cleaving to Christ is what
Mary Magdalene did at the tomb. when she rushed there on that
resurrection morning and found the stone rolled away and she
went into the she went into the tomb that they had laid the Lord's
body and she saw in that tomb two angels one sitting where
his feet were and one sitting where his head was and she Weeping,
ask the angels. Now, what's so amazing about
this is that every other time that a person
encounters an angel, there's great fear. But instead, she
talks to them as if they were just human. She says, what have
you done with my Lord? Where have you taken him? Tell
me, tell me and I'll go get him. And then she comes out of the
tomb and she sees the Lord Jesus Christ, who she doesn't know
is the Lord. She thinks he's the gardener. And so she begins
to plead with him. Where have you taken his body? Tell me, and I'll go get it and
treat it properly. And the Lord Jesus, who she thought
was the gardener, said, Mary, Soon as she heard her name, soon
as she heard that, my sheep hear my voice. I call them by name
and they follow after me. As soon as she heard her name,
this gospel is for me. That's how you know you've heard
your name. This is for me. This is what I have to have.
I've got to cleave to Christ. I can't kiss and go back to Moab. I can't act as if, you know,
I'm emotionally moved by this and therefore I'm having this,
you know, this hope of salvation. No, I've got to have Christ.
And as soon as she heard her name, soon as she heard her name,
she cried, Rabboni, which translated means master. And she cleaved
to him. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
Mary, don't touch me for I've not yet ascended into my father.
Now don't misunderstand what the Lord's saying. You look up
that word touch and it means cleave. Don't cleave to me. I've not yet gone to my father.
The Lord wasn't saying, if you touch me now after my resurrection
and before my ascension, you're going to defile me because you're
a sinner. Don't touch me. That's not what he's saying.
He's saying, marry. Don't depend upon my physical
presence. Don't depend upon the evidence
of physical things, whether they be emotions or things or people
or feelings. For I'm going to my Father. When
I go to my Father, I'm going to send my Holy Spirit. And when
the Holy Spirit comes, I'm going to be with you always. Always. That's what He's saying. And that's what He's saying to
me and you. Don't depend upon some physical manifestation of
God's grace. This is a spiritual cleaving.
This is not a physical cleaving. This is a matter of the heart.
This is a work of the Spirit of God. And if you have not the
Spirit of God, you're none of His. But when the Spirit of God
comes, He convicts us of our sin. Because we believe not on
Him. Do you get that? That's the root
of all sin. Faith, unbelief. That's the sin
that does so easily beset each one of us. Now, here's the problem,
too, that we look at the manifestation of our sin and think that's the
problem. And if I can just fix this outward
manifestation of sin, then I'll be better. Sin is a problem of the heart.
You know, I was thinking, you own a company and your company's
in financial trouble and you get an advisor to come in and
give you some advice on how to fix things. And the advisor comes
in and says, he says, I can fix this, but the only way I can
fix it is if you make me the owner of this company. And you
own the company and you say, well, I'm not sure I'm ready
for that. There's the difference. Men want
Jesus to come in and fix the problems, but they don't want
to take over the heart. They want to relinquish control
of everything to him. Sin's a matter of the heart.
Don't look to God to come in and straighten out your life
and help you with your bad habits or your your sinful behavior,
whatever it might be, and then think that because you quit something
or started doing something that therefore there's the evidence
of salvation. Don't cling to me. Don't be looking
for physical evidences. This is a spiritual work. This is a matter of the heart.
David said, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. David has spent at least nine
months trying to make up for what he had done with Uriah and
Bathsheba. I suspect that David for that entire nine months went
to the temple every day. He made sacrifice every day.
He was miserable until Nathan came and said, thou art the man.
David said, oh, I've sinned. This is the problem of my heart. You see, salvation is surrendering. That's what the Lord was saying
to the rich young ruler. Sell all that you have and cleave
unto me. Follow me. And he went away sorrowful. And men keep doing that today.
The history of Orpah is repeated over and over and over again
because men look to God to come in and fix the evidences of their
sin, the manifestation of their sin, without taking control of
the heart. I'm not going to yield that to
him. I've got to remain in control
here. I've got to remain in charge.
God takes over the heart. You know what? The rest of it
will take care of itself. When the heart is bent towards
God, when the heart is made new, Well, David in Psalm 51 when
he said a contrite heart, a broken and contrite heart, he will not
despise. Why will he not despise a broken
and contrite heart? Is that your responsibility?
I got to be broken and contrite? No, he doesn't despise a contrite
heart because he's the one that made it. He has to make our hearts
contrite. He has to give us the spirit
of Ruth, who clave to Naomi. And we see this in religion,
don't we? Men pretend to be spiritual because they want to show evidence,
so they do public prayers. They, you know, they want everybody
in the restaurant to see them praying or over their meal or
they dress in a certain way that, you know, that says that they're
spiritual and they wear their phylacteries and they put crosses
around their necks and what are they doing? They're looking for
some spiritual or some physical manifestation or evidence of
faith. This is a matter of the heart. It's a hard issue. That's why
coming to Christ is something that you can do right now, right
this very minute. But some are thinking, well,
yeah, I'll think about it. I'm gonna go back to Moab this afternoon
and see how Moab works out for me and see if I can fit back
into some of my relationships. And if all fails, perhaps Orpah
kept in the back of her mind, you know, I can always go back
to Bethlehem Judah if I, you know, if things don't work out
in Moab. The problem is things did work out in Moab and she
never came back. This cleaving to the Lord Jesus
Christ is a matter of the heart. You've been diagnosed with cancer
and you go to the doctor and he says to you, I can give you some medicine
that'll take away all the discomfort of your disease and you'll feel
good. Or we can do some radical treatments
that are gonna be very painful. And most folks like Orpah said,
well, I'll take the medicine. I just won't feel better. You see, this is a, it's a heart
transplant. Creating me a clean heart, a
new heart. You know, people say, well, I
gave my heart to Jesus. He doesn't want it. Hey, you need his heart. We need the mind of Christ. We
need the heart of God. And that's what Ruth is demonstrating. She's cleaving just like Mary
Magdalene at the tomb, cleaved to the Lord Jesus Christ. She
would not let him go. The Lord had to say to her, Mary,
this cleaving to me is going to be a spiritual thing. She
was thinking, well, I've lost you once. I'm not going to lose
you again. No, you're not. But it's not because you're going
to see me physically, it's because you're going to have to rest
spiritually in me. This cleaving to the Lord Jesus
Christ is not, it's a continual thing. It's a continual thing. To whom? Coming. Lord, we need
your daily bread. You got to keep coming to Christ
and keep feeding on his body as your as your body and his
blood is your blood and and his life is your life and his death
is your death. It's a daily thing. God gives
you saving faith. You find yourself losing sight
of Christ and and he in that new heart says, Come on to me. You can't stay away. being continually drawn. You find yourself hungering and
thirsting after righteousness. And just as the belly, the belly
is a picture of the flesh in the Bible. And just as the belly
hungers a couple, three times a day for food, God creates that
same kind of hunger in the soul. those that have the mind of Christ
those who are cleaving to the Lord Jesus Christ they can't
let him go they and if they do lose their grip on him there's a there's a story of
David's mighty men who were in battle against the Philistines
and I could just see this picture because the Bible says that that
the men fought with the sword all day until their hand cleaved
to the sword and they could not turn it loose. Have you ever
done that? Have you been working with a tool and you get dehydrated
and your muscles in your hands cramp and you got a hold of something,
you can't turn it loose. What a beautiful picture. The
sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. And when God gives you
the spirit of one of David's mighty men, you can't let go
of that sword. You cleave to it. You've got
to have Christ. Listen, there's only two kinds
of people in this world. There's orpahs who are moved,
weeping, who go back to Moab. And there are Ruths. who cleave
to the Lord Jesus Christ, spiritually, continually, and confidently. This is what faith does. Faith
says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
for I am persuaded, I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I've committed unto him against that day. I'm gonna cleave
to him. And I'm confident that he's not gonna fail. He's not
gonna fail. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 11,
speaking of Sarah being 90 years old and conceiving a child says,
she judged him faithful who had promised. Let us hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering. For he is faithful
that promised. Cleaving to Christ is a spiritual
thing. It is a continual thing. And
it is a confident thing that the spirit of God puts in the
heart. Orpah or Ruth. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. I pray that you would bless it,
Lord, our hearts and cause us to cleave to Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen.