Believer. The faith God gives
makes a believer steadfastly minded. That will be the subject,
the title of the message. Steadfastly minded. God tries faith. He tries faith. But faith that is proven true
faith is faith that is proven to depend entirely upon the God
of all grace. It's not proven in the sense
that it's proven so that we can talk about how strong our faith
is. The very heart of faith is to be steadfastly minded that
I'm absolutely dependent on another to take care of me. Another. And so that's when you cast all
your hope, all your care, your entire eternal well-being into
the hands of Christ Jesus. No trials, no temptations can
separate you. You're steadfastly minded. You're set on Him. Single-minded. Single for Christ. Now, the setting
here in Ruth chapter 1, let me just I'll give you a little background. Elimelech was Naomi's husband,
and a famine struck in Bethlehem, and so he moves Naomi and their
two sons to a pagan land of idolatry. And he was seeking temporary
ease from the famine. And so he goes down there, and
Elimelech died. And after he died, in rebellion
against God's command, his two sons married some Moabite women,
married outside of Israel, married Moabite women and then they both
died, the two men, two sons, they died childless. So here's
Naomi now. She's been in Moab for over ten
years. She's a widow and she's got two
daughters-in-law living with her under the same roof that
are widows. So, what we're going to see now
is in two of these women, we're going to see faith that is steadfastly
minded. And in the other one, we're going
to see faith that still has a choice to make. And I've thought of
that word long and hard, and I want you to consider it. I'm
going to talk to you about it at the end. One of these girls
still had choices to make. All right, let's start off here
with Naomi. Now, Naomi was a believer. The
Lord won't allow His children to be without the Word of His
grace. No matter where you find yourself,
as a believer, God your Father is not going to suffer you to
go without the fellowship of His saints and the Word of His
grace and the worship of Him. You can bank on that. It may be a trying manner in
which He brings you to the house of bread but he's going to bring
his children there he's going to bring them there first we
see here in his providence this work of God in his providence
the first thing God did to make this woman go back to Judah is
he killed her husband he took her husband the second thing
he did was he took her two sons they died and he made Moab bitter
to Naomi He made it better to Naomi. And Hosea, let me read
this to you. He said to Gomer, picture of
the church, picture of his bride. I mean, to Gomer, picture of
the church, picture of his bride. He said, Therefore, behold, I
will hedge up thy way with thorns. You know, when the way is hedged
up with thorns, you're not turning into the thorns. You're going
the clear way. He said, I'll hedge up your way
with thorns, I'll make a wall, and she shall not find her paths.
She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them.
She'll seek them, but she won't find them. Then she'll say, I'll
go and return to my first husband. Then was it better with me than
it is now. That's what God's got to do.
But once God has hedged us up with thorns, once He's made everything
around us bitter, He turns us from all that to Him by giving
us something far better. Far better. Look here in Ruth
chapter 1 verse 6. This is the work of God through
His Word. It says, Then she arose with
her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country
of Moab. Return from the country of Moab. For she had heard, the
Word came down to her in the country of Moab, how that the
Lord had visited His people in giving them bread. Have you heard
that? Have you heard that the Lord
has visited His people in giving them bread? Faith comes by hearing,
and hearing comes by the Word of God. Have you heard this? He's visited His people with
bread. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I'm
the bread of life. If you don't have Him, you don't
have life. If you haven't eaten Him, lived
upon Him, you don't have life. He said, I'm the bread of life.
He that cometh to me, to me, to Christ. You've got to come to Christ. I can't help you. The church
can't help you. Doctrine can't help you. You've
got to come to Christ. You've got to come to Christ.
And he says, but he that cometh to me shall never hunger. He
that believeth on me shall never thirst. He said, this is that
bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and
never die. You won't hunger if you eat this
bread. You won't thirst if you eat this bread. You won't die
if you eat this bread. Now that sounds like a win-win
to me. Christ the bread. Christ the bread. Now look, I
want you to see the work of faith. Verse 7. Wherefore she went forth
out of the place where she was. See, she heard it. She believed. And she arose. If you're going
to follow God, if you're going to follow Christ, come to Christ,
You're going to have to leave Moab. If we go to Christ, we're
going to have to leave everything else. You can't eat the bread
of the world and eat the bread from heaven. You just can't do
it. You can't do it. You either love
the world and the love of God is not in you, or Christ made
Himself known to you. He's filled you with His love
for you, and you can't help but love Him. You can't help but
follow Him. You're constrained. You're bound to Him because He's
bound Himself to you. You've got to follow Him. You've
got to follow Him. And He makes this world bitter
and He makes Himself to you the Son of Life. Life, sweet to the
taste. Naomi set her face toward God.
She said, I'm going. I'm leaving here. This is it.
I'm leaving this people behind. I'm leaving everybody here and
I'm going. I've got to go. I've got to have
this bread. I've got to be with the Lord's
people. I've got to leave this place. That's what we've got
to do. That's what we've got to do. We've got to leave Moab.
We've got to go to the Lord's people, to the bread, to Christ.
Now, that's Naomi. Now, the second thing has to
do with Naomi as well, but I want you to see the love of faith. The love of faith. We hear a
lot said about love. But we're going to see what true
love is right here with Naomi. This is the love God gives in
the heart. The meekness God gives in the
heart. The pureness of heart, right
here. Verse 7, Wherefore she went forth out of the place where
she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they went on the
way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said unto her
two daughters-in-law, Go, return each to her mother's house, The
Lord deal kindly with you as you've dealt with the dead, with
my husband and my two sons and with me. The Lord grant you that
you may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband."
She found new husbands and new rest and a provider. And then
she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and wept. Now
these two girls loved Naomi, and they were willing here to
leave their own families to go with her. Their own families
to go with her. But Naomi has the love of God
in her heart. She loves God. Because God first
loved her and He's shown her something about grace. So Naomi
urged these two girls to go back to their own mother's house.
She commended them for being kind to her. She prayed that
the Lord would bless them. And she kissed them. And they
all cried together. And she said, now y'all go back.
Go on back. Verse 10 says, And they said
unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. They
said, No, we want to go with you. And Naomi persuades them even
more to go back. Watch this, verse 11. Naomi said,
Turn again, my daughters. Why will you go with me? There's
no more sons in my womb that can be your husbands. There's
no reason to go with me. Turn again, my daughters, go
your way. I'm too old to have a husband, and if I should think
I had any hope of having a husband tonight, it should bear sons.
You're going to wait until they're grown? Would you stay unmarried
for them until they could be your husbands? Oh no, my daughters,
it grieves me so much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord's
gone out against me." Now these two girls are, they're emotional
right now. And they're sort of worked up
that Naomi's... I mean, Naomi's been there over
ten years. They loved the sons that she
bore. They love, you know, the sons
that they were married to that have died. They have some sentimental
attachment to Naomi. They love her. And they want
to go with her. But Naomi discourages them from going with
her. She doesn't sound too much like a soul winner, does she?
This is the time when they're emotional and sentimental and
worked up when you're supposed to throw out the net or the steel
trap or whatever it is and pull them in, you know. Naomi didn't
want them to go because of her. She didn't want them following
her. You ever heard the stories of some of the old tent revivals
and even on some of the crusades on television where they would,
you know, give the big invitation and have folks coming down the
aisle and the stories of how they'd actually have folks planted
in the audience that would go down first. So other folks would
go follow down too and everybody's all worked up, you know. I used
to, I heard this thing one time about the, you know, And the
fellow I knew that owned a bar, same kind of deal. He said that
he got money for everybody that played the jukebox. And he said
when he came in, he always put money in the jukebox and played
it so that he'd be playing music. And he said, I do that because
I make more money if I do that because nobody wants to be the
first one to go there and put their money in. Everybody will
know what they played. So he said, I just started up
for them. That's kind of what they They'd just start everybody
going down the aisle so everybody felt good about going. But Naomi was a kind woman. There's
no doubt about it. She was gracious. But when we
love God, when we have the love of God in our hearts, we don't
want folks to join the church or compel anybody to do anything
in the name of the Lord Jesus. I don't want to compel you to
do anything. That's what God saves us from. strength of hand. He said not by power, not by
might. That's not how my house is going
to be built. It's going to be built by my spirit. He's given us one thing to do.
And it's so simple. It's holding up a banner. It's
holding up a banner. You don't use that flagpole to
try to pick people up with it and whip them back into shape
with it, you just hold up the banner. That banner is Christ. Christ our banner. And He draws
His people. He brings His people. So she
wants Christ to make Him willing. We don't want sinners following
us. We want them to follow Christ. Look, I want you to see this
in our Lord. Turn over to Matthew chapter
8. Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8 and verse 19. The Lord did this. Jesus saw, verse 18, Jesus saw
great multitudes about him and he gave commandment to his disciples
to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came and
said unto him, Master, I will follow thee wherever you go. I'll follow you wherever you
go. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where
to lay his head. Oh, you mean I'm going to lose out
on all that if I go with you? I'm going to have to give up
everything. to go with him. Look over at Luke chapter 14.
Luke chapter 14, verse 28. You know this parable. Which
of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth
the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish lest happily after
he laid the foundation he's not able to finish it, all the folks
around you begin to mock you, saying this man began to build
but he wasn't able to finish it. He couldn't finish it. What
king going to make war against another king sitteth not down
first and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand
to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or
else while the other is yet a great way off he sendeth an ambassador
and desire the conditions of peace. You see, we don't sit down and
count up what we've turned away from and how we've lined up things
and how we're doing like we think we ought to do and count up our
righteousnesses and say, well, now I've made myself ready. Now, I believe I'm ready now
to worship Christ and follow Him. I believe I can do it now.
You don't have the price to do it. You don't have the captain
of the warfare to accomplish the battle, the war. You've got
to sit down and count the cost and realize, I've got nothing. I've got nothing to pay with.
I need Christ. Now you've got payment in full.
Now you've got enough to build. I need somebody that has accomplished
my warfare for me. I need somebody that has made
me the righteousness of God, who's made me holiness to God,
who sanctified me, who's purged me, who's washed me, who can
present me holy, spotless, without fault to God because nothing
I do, nothing I do is going to measure up to the perfection
of holiness. Nothing. Now you've got the captain
of your warfare. Now you're ready to go with the
captain who's accomplished the warfare. He says, so likewise,
whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he can't
be my disciple. So that's what Naomi is dealing
with here. She knows that to follow Christ,
to go after the Lord, a person's got to forsake everything. She's
got to forsake everything, leave it all behind and follow Him.
If Christ is your righteousness, you're going to forsake your
own righteousnesses. You're going to stop talking
about your righteousnesses. You're going to stop telling
sinners that there's some kind of righteousness they can do. If Christ is your treasure, you're
going to forsake all this world's treasures. The rich young ruler
couldn't do either one. But the Lord proved that that
thing he thought was faith and righteousness and true wasn't
steadfastly minded. Because he thought, I've kept
the law from my youth up, and look at all these riches I have.
You think I'm going to leave all this treasure these riches
in my righteousness and leave them all behind and follow after
you? We've got to be made poor. But
the Lord says, I say unto you, there's no man that's left house
or parents or brethren or wife or children for the kingdom of
God's sake who shall not receive manifold more in this present
time than in heaven to come. If you've got Christ, you've
got everything. If you've got Christ, you've
got it all. Everything you see around you right here, everything
you see in this life, and everything you're setting your goals for
and looking at, it's not real. I wish I could press that opponent
up. It's not real. I know that it
feels firm and feels solid, but this is not real. This is just, before this was,
any of this was, God is. And when He's wrapped all this
up and burned it all up, God is. God is. That's real. That's the reality. This is not. This was framework
of time set forth for God to show His glory to His people
and make them rejoice in Him and everything else and everybody
else. It's just serving that purpose. And that's the reality. I had
a friend that was in Franklin, Tennessee when we were there.
And he was like this. He had some difficulties in his
life. His family had a death in the
family and had one sister that had moved away. And they'd always
been a close family. And his father was preparing
to move away. or had moved away, I can't remember now, but he
was, he called a pastor friend of mine and said, I'm thinking
about moving there. And the pastor, this was a believer,
he called a pastor friend, and my pastor friend discouraged
him from coming. And my friend got frustrated
about it somewhat. He thought, well, he doesn't
want me there, I don't guess. Discouraged him. But finally
he just said, I'm going there. Whether he wants me there or
not, I'm going. I'm not going there for him. I'm going there
because I want to hear the gospel preached. And he went. And my pastor friend said, that's
the only reason I was discouraged. I wanted you to come here for
Christ, not for me. Not for me. That's what Naomi did. Here's
the third thing. Let's look at Orpah now. Verse
14. They lifted up their voice and
wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law. She had great
affection for Naomi, but not for Naomi's Lord. She went back
to her people. She went back to her gods. You
know why Christ said that no sign shall be given but Christ?
You know why He said that? Only the divine revelation of
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is going to give you a heart
to follow Him. That's it. That's it. The Apostle Paul received mercy
from Christ in this manner, when Christ revealed himself in power
and wisdom on the road to Damascus. And that's exactly what Paul
meant when he said in 2 Corinthians, when he said, as we have received
mercy, the same manner in which I received this mercy, I faint
not. Faint not. The veil is on the
heart. And the Spirit of the Lord has
to remove the veil and turn a sinner to Christ so he can behold the
glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. And only the gospel of
the grace of God in Christ Jesus alone. Declaring all flesh as grass. declaring all flesh is grass. It's like the flower that springs
up. It's just for a moment and it's fading away. Only Christ,
only Christ is salvation. And Paul says, and because we
have this hope that in the way that we receive this mercy, God's
going to give this mercy to others through the word of truth. He
said, we use great plainness of speech. And he said, that
your faith might stand in the wisdom, not in the wisdom of
men, but in the power of God. You remember what I was trying
to show you Thursday night about the power of God? The power of
God, it's a person. The power of God is a person.
We saw, you can read it in the bulletin, how that Christ is
the firstborn. He's the one that those two ordinances
the Lord gave when he brought them out of Egypt, The reason
the firstborn in Egypt didn't die, the reason the choice sons,
the chosen elect sons in Egypt didn't die, is because God provided
His firstborn son, the Passover lamb. And when he came out, He
gave him two ordinances to remember that forever. He gave him the
ordinances of the Passover, and He gave him this, sanctify to
me all the firstborn that open the womb. Just like every other
aspect of the law, No child, no man ever fulfilled that law. Christ is the Passover. Behold,
a virgin shall conceive and behold, a virgin shall give birth to
a son. He's the first one that ever
opened the womb. The womb is opened at conception,
not at birth. He opened the womb. He's the
firstborn and He's the Lamb. And you know the dignity that
belongs to the firstborn? Jacob said, He said to Reuben,
who he took it from, but this is the glory of the firstborn.
He said, He's the beginning of my strength. He's the excellency
of dignity and the excellency of power. Listen to this. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
of us. You know who the honor goes to
for saving His Father's house, for providing for His Father's
house, for honoring His Father's name, for bringing all His sons
and all His daughters and all His household and all His substance
to His Father and presenting it to His Father as a faithful
firstborn son? That belongs to Christ alone. Paul said we use great plainness
of speech, but we don't use excellency of speech. Do you know the difference? Plainness of speech is pureness
of heart God gives. Where you tell sinners, you don't
choose God. God's going to have to choose
you. You know why you got to tell
sinners that? Because everybody by nature He thinks they get
to choose. And everybody by nature wants
to choose. It's not any difficulty to get a person to be righteous,
to do some religious thing. The first thing Adam did was
start trying to cover his nakedness. He didn't go off and start committing
adultery. He started trying to be righteous.
That's the first thing. And that's the first thing we've
got to be safe from, and continue to be safe from, and continue
to be safe from. We've got to tell sinners, brethren,
God put a people in Christ, and Christ has the soul, honor, and
privilege, and responsibility to save that people. What about
the responsibility of man? You got one responsibility, and
it's to trust Christ. But until he exercises the excellency
of powering you, you won't be responsible. He's got to make you pure in
heart and honest. And when he's done it, and you
receive mercy that way, Now you start dealing with other people
that way. Excellency of speech is what Paul said when he said
craftiness and dishonesty and handling the word deceitfully.
You know there at the end of what Scott read, and I just saw
this, at the end of there he said, who's known the mind of
Christ that he may instruct him? He took that from Isaiah 40.
Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who's been his counselor? Who told God how to had to purpose
salvation. Who taught God that the Word
that was from the beginning, before the beginning that we
know, that Word was with God and that Word was the eternal
covenant? That Word is the counsel of peace.
That Word is the Word of salvation where God put His people in that
Word. And then by that Word, God made
all things. And when Adam sinned in the garden,
He upheld all things by the Word of His power. the excellency
of power because he's got a people and he's going to save them.
God's trusted them to him. He's surety for them. And he's going
to bring them back. And then he sent forth his word,
he sent forth his prophets with his word, he gave his law, he
gave everything to foreshadow what he's going to do to teach
sinners to shut them up to him. And then the word was made flesh,
and the word dwelt among us, and the word put away the sin
of his people, and purged them, and separated them under God,
and made them righteous in God, and then the word saves His pastors,
and the Word sends His pastors, and the Word sent the Word to
you, and the Word opened your heart, and the Word made you
receive this mercy, and He made you willing to be meek toward
God, and bold in the face of adversity to declare God saved
by the Word. By the Word. He made you no more
deceitful, crafty, dishonest man. He made you honest, pure
of heart. You know how He saves now. So you've got to declare
the word. But who was with him in the beginning and told him
to do all that? So do you think by some excellency
that you possess that you're going to be able to take this
word and craft it a little better than what God did? Describe this
salvation a little better than what God did? That's what Naomi
didn't want to do. She didn't want to do. I would
sooner try to convince you to follow after Santa Claus than
I would to follow after some Jesus that's not the true and
living God. What good's it going to do you?
That's what Christ condemned in the Pharisees when he said,
you go land and sea, you go in all these places making proselytes,
but because you're not making them proselytes in truth, with
the word of truth, You've given them a false hope and you're
making them a two more fold child of hell than when you found them.
Now they've got darkness on top of darkness. Well, the power. He's the power. He breaks the
heart. He breaks that stony heart. He's
the power of righteousness. The wisdom of God. Paul said,
unto them which are called, Christ is the power. He's the power
of God unto salvation that makes the gospel the power of God unto
salvation. Take Christ out and you've taken
out the dynamite. You've taken the fuse off the
dynamite. You've taken the key out of the
lock. You've taken the very essence of the gospel away. That's why
Paul said, I don't want to preach this gospel wisdom of words lest
I make the cross of Christ of no effect. It's got to be made
to see You know, and it don't make any sense to us, does it?
You know, you think, why am I going to tell a man to go to Christ
and tell a man you can't come to Christ unless He brings you?
You've got to have Christ, you've got to cast all your care on
Christ, and you've got to trust Christ, and you can't come to
Him unless God draws you. Because that's how God said to
preach it. That's how God... The first thing
Christ said when He stood up, He stood up, He read to them,
And he said, this day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. And
they went to asking questions and murmuring and he said, listen,
there was a bunch of widows in Sarepta. There was more than
one leper. There was a bunch of lepers.
But God saved whom He chose to save. First thing, first message
he preached. Never met the people in his life.
First message he preached to them. They tried to take him
up on a hill and throw him off of it. Some started murmuring to him
when he stood there with them. And he said, Don't murmur among
yourselves. Every man that the Father has given to me shall
come to me. No man can unless my Father draws
him. But they'll come, and I'll feed
them the bread of life, and I'll save them, and I'll raise them
up. Do we know better how to preach
the Gospel than the Prophet himself, the Master? That's the only revelation. That's how God chose to make
it to make Christ everything. I'm not going to decide, well,
I think I can do a better job. I wasn't with him in the beginning.
I was there in purpose, in his purpose, but I didn't know anything. Still don't know much. I'm just
supposed to hold up what I know. That's all. Well, here's the
last thing. Ruth. Ruth. Verse 14. And they lifted up their voices
and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law,
but Ruth clave unto her." There's a difference in these
two. There's a difference in these two. Job says, he thundereth
with the voice of His Excellency. And when he does, He'll move them when His voice
is heard. God thunders marvelously with
His voice. And great things doeth He which
can't be comprehended. And here's one of them. Ruth
Clay. Who made the difference between
these two girls? I want you to listen to how Ruth speaks of
God. How she speaks of the Lord. Where
did she get this? Naomi had taught both these girls.
They knew about her God. She lived with them for ten and
a half years. And as a believer, when she went
there, you don't think she didn't tell them about her God? Now
listen to what Ruth says, verse 15. And Naomi said, Behold, thy
sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, unto her gods. Now
you go after your sister-in-law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not
to leave you. or to return from following after
you. For whether you go, I'll go.
Whether you lodge, I'll lodge. Your people shall be My people.
Your God will be My God. And where you die, that's where
I'll die. That's where I'll be buried. And the Lord do so to
Me. And more also, if aught but death part thee and Me." And
when Naomi heard that she was steadfastly minded to go with
her, then she left speaking unto her. She said, Come on. She loved
Naomi because she didn't love her as a mother-in-law. She loved
her as a sister. She loved Naomi because of the
God Naomi had declared to her. She loved Naomi because she loved
her God. And she said, God's my God. That's what grace does. Grace
takes a famine, sends a famine, Grace moves a Naomi down to one
of His chosen children, one of His chosen Ruths. Grace gives
His child a new heart through this Gospel. And that new heart
cries out, God's my God. God is my God. He's my God. His people are my people. Nothing shall separate me from
the love of God in Christ my Lord. Grace makes us bind ourselves
to Christ. It makes us take an oath steadfastly
minded to follow Him. That's what faith is. Faith is
just like this like manner that Ruth made this oath. We confess
allegiance to Christ and to the world in baptism. We say, where
He died, that's where I died. Where He was buried, that's where
I was buried. Where He rose up, that's where
I rose up. And where He's seated right now
at the right hand of God, that's where I'm seated, accepted in
the Beloved. That's what we declare. That's
what we declare. Let me leave you with something
here to think about. I said to you that in two of
these, we see somebody that by God's grace were given. They
were steadfastly minded. But in Orpah, we see somebody
who had choices to make. She had choices to make. Did
you know that serving the Lord is not a choice? I know that when we come to this
point in the sermon, a lot of times you'll hear a preacher
say, now you're going to have to do what Joshua said. He said,
choose this day whom you'll serve. Turn to Joshua 24.15. Joshua
24.15. I want you to see this. We'll
close with this. Joshua 24 15. Steadfastly minded. That's what
true faith is. That's the faith God gives. Look
here now. 24 15. This is what he said. If it seem evil unto you to serve
the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve. Now here's
your choices. whether the gods which your father
served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods
of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. The choice wasn't
to choose to serve the Lord or choose to serve these gods. It's
if you ain't serving the Lord, you got to choose which idol
god of your imagination you want to serve. As for me in my house,
because of God's grace and He's given a steadfast mindedness,
singleness of heart for Christ, We don't have to make a choice.
We'll serve Him. Serve Him. God made Naomi and
Ruth steadfastly minded for Christ. Orpah went back and she had to
choose, out of all the flavors of religion that Moab had to
offer, who she'd serve. Does it seem evil to you to serve
the Lord? Does it seem evil to you to serve
the Lord? Do you still have to choose between
your imaginary gods? It's my continual prayer that
the excellency of the power may thunder in your heart and give
you steadfastness, make you steadfastly minded so that you can serve the Lord
and stop making choices. That's my prayer. Amen.