You want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of Ruth. Actually, our third message from
the first one, we just barely touched on some highlights in
Ruth and didn't really get into much detail at all. But I want
to go through this book with you. It's easier to find Ruth
if you remember at the time when it occurred. There was a period
of time after Israel came into the land of Canaan. They had
been in Egypt. They were brought out of Egypt
by Moses, brought through the wilderness. And then Joshua brought
them into Canaan. And under Joshua, they were able
to overthrow the Canaanites, at least subdue most of them.
God gave them the land that he had promised, although their
enemies were still occupying that land And during that time,
there was no king. There was no king in Israel during
this time of their history. There were judges. The word judges,
if you read the book of Judges, really means saviors, because
everyone that was raised up delivered Israel from their enemies, which
God brought upon Israel because of their sins. So that was the
theme of the Book of Judges, and the Book of Ruth occurs during
this time. And so if you remember that,
then it has to occur either before or after the Book of Judges,
and it turns out it's right after. So that may be helpful to you.
Hopefully it also helps get the setting here, because I think
that also will become clear in a minute here. All right, let's
pray. Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for the truth that you've given to us from heaven
and written it through your Holy Spirit, working through men of
your choosing, men that you carried along as they thought and wrote
so that what they said was not of themselves, even though they
spoke out of their own minds and their own experiences, yet
you guided every word so that nothing is in error. Everything
is perfect in your word, and we're so thankful that we can
rely on it. We can't find anything like it
in all of this world, over. There is no truth, but your word
the newspaper, the TV, the radio, even the conversations we have
with others, that we can never find a place where the truth
is so clearly, so unfailingly spoken without any error. And we're thankful for that.
And we're most thankful of all that the word that you've given
to us speaks of our eternal salvation from the sin that damns us for
eternity, that salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, our God and
our Savior. And we want to give him all praise
and glory. And as we consider what you've
written here, Lord, we pray you'd guide us and open our hearts
to your love and to your grace that's in Christ. In his name
we pray, amen. Now I want to read back through
here, and I want to bring your attention to several things here
in the first chapter again. But I'm not going to repeat what
I did last time. I'm going to try to get into
the part that we didn't cover, which I will remind you of the
main point last time. But first, let's read through
this. And as we read through it, we're going to pause, and
we're going to consider these things. It says, first of all,
let me say this at the outset. In the Old Testament scriptures,
we find history recorded. But not just any history. We
find a history that God had ordained and God brought about through
his providence to record the people, the events, the circumstances,
and the places, all in order to convey a spiritual truth. Now, how do you know that? How
can you make such a claim? Well, remember Abraham. He and
his wife, Sarah, could have no children. And Abraham being older
and unable to have children because Sarah was barren, Sarah suggested
that he go in to Hagar and raise up a seed according to God's
promise by her. Well, she was Sarah's slave woman,
and that was not God's will to fulfill his promise, but it was
his secret will. because God used that event to
teach an allegory of truth. In Galatians chapter 4 it says
that was an allegory. And so we learn from this that
God has not only written about history, but he himself arranged
it. He guided the actions of men
according to his eternal purpose in order that he might give us
an allegory of the gospel. And so you can read about this.
and throughout the Old Testament. And I just mention a few. Hosea,
for example, married a woman according to God's word to the
prophet Hosea, who was an adulteress. And that was to depict God's
love for Israel and his love for the true Israel, his people
who in themselves were adulterers and adulteresses. Or you could
read about the book of Jonah, how Jonah was cast overboard,
the sea became calm, the mariners were saved, Jonah went into the
belly of the whale, three days and three nights, he was thrown
up on the land, he went and preached to Nineveh, that's all about
the Lord Jesus Christ. He went down into the depths
of the sea. When he was thrown over, the
sea of God's wrath became calm for us. He then, after being
raised from the dead, went and preached the gospel through his
people throughout the world. So all of these things are allegories,
and this book is also an allegory. The book of Esther, for example,
is an allegory that teaches the gospel. So let's get into this
one, the book of Ruth here in verse one. Now it came to pass
in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the
land. All right, now why do famines come? Well, God brings famines. God is the one who gives the
increase from the earth, right? Men sow the seed, God waters
it, and sometimes men water it through irrigation, but rain
falls from heaven and waters it. But God gives the increase. So all that we have comes from
God. I know when I was a kid, you
put a couple of beans in a moist paper and put them in the window
and it grows a bean. You think, look what I did. But
in the whole process, you really did nothing. God did that. And
it's to teach us, God gives the increase. What a simple lesson.
If God gives the increase, then when God withholds the increase,
it's also God's hand. He gives life and he takes life. He gives light and he gives darkness. All of these things are at the
hand of God and scripture affirms this over and over. So famine
is what God does in withholding a blessing of the produce. But God gives the famine because
of sin. because of sin. And during the
time of the judges, when the children of Israel were departing
from God in idolatry, there were many occasions when God would
bring their enemies or famine upon them. And this case was
one of them. God brought a famine in the land. It says, and a certain
man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of
Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. A certain man, and
it's gonna tell us who he is. Notice the place where he was
is named Bethlehem, Judah. It says that he left that place
to go to another place, Moab, and he took his wife and his
two sons with him. And the name of the man, it says
in verse two, was Elimelech. and the name of his wife, Naomi,
and the name of his two sons, Malon and Kilion, Ephrathites
of Bethlehem Judah. And they came into the country
of Moab, and they continued there." Now, let's do what the Hebrew
writer does in the book of Hebrews when he mentions Melchizedek.
He said Melchizedek was the king of Salem. His name means king
of righteousness. Melchizedek means king of righteousness. Salem means peace, therefore
he's the king of righteousness and the king of peace. You see
how God himself interprets scripture and gives us the pattern. Elimelech
is made of two words, Eli and Melech. It means God is my king
or God is my king or my God is king. So either my God is king
or God is my king. And I'm going to use the first
one, God is, I mean, my God is king. My God is king. That might
have been the second one I gave. So hold that name, this man whose
name means my God is king during a time when there were only judges,
remember? There was no king. And in fact,
in the book of Hosea, it references this. If you look at Hosea, it
comes right after the book of Daniel, and it says this in Hosea
chapter 13. He said, let's see. I'm looking for it here. Oh,
here it says in verse 10, in Hosea 13 and verse 10, I will
be thy king. This is the Lord speaking to
Israel. Hosea, remember, is the prophet who married the adulterous
woman who was a harlot And he had children by her, and they
were given names. And those names meant something.
Here God says in Hosea 13, verse 10, I will be thy king. Where
is any other that may save thee in all thy cities, and thy judges
of whom thou saidst, give me a king and princes? I gave thee
a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath. Okay, so that's a reference back
to the time of the judges, when at the end of their period of
time, Israel demanded a king. And what king did God give them
but King Saul? God told them through Samuel
the prophet, it's wickedness for you to ask for a king. God
is your king. And here, Elimelech's name means,
my God is king. Okay, what does that mean? That
means God is sovereign, doesn't it? God is sovereign. If God
is sovereign, then that helps us understand what comes next
in the whole book of Ruth, right? In this allegory, what's the
first thing we see here? That out of this land called
Bethlehem, Judah, a man whose God is the king now is going
to take his wife and sons into Moab, and something's gonna happen
from there. Now notice the place. The place
was, where they lived, was Bethlehem, Judah. And I mentioned this at
the end last week, that Bethlehem means the house of bread. And
what does that mean to us as believers, the house of bread? Well, it means the place, the
house, where the bread is. And what is the bread that God
gives? the Lord Jesus Christ, whose body was broken and his
blood was shed. He is the bread of life, John
chapter six. The place where the bread of
life is. Now this place, of course, is
with the people of God. That's the place where Christ
was born in Bethlehem. It's even foreshadowing the fact
that the bread of life is not only in Bethlehem, but God would
give that bread in that city when Christ would be born. And
the word Judah refers to that tribe which Leah named when Judah,
her fourth son, was born. And she said, now I will praise
the Lord. and his name means praise the
Lord, or God is the one that they celebrated. These were the
people who lived in the place where Christ would be given,
Christ's body broken and his blood shed for them, and therefore
they would praise the Lord and celebrate his goodness in their
salvation, you see? And there, God gave the bread. Elimelech, a man whose name means
My God is the king or my God is king. He left there when the
famine came. Ah, this tells us now the sad
condition that is the setting of the book of Ruth. What happened
here in history? Well, we see that this man left
the place which was the house of bread and the people who were
in there called the people of praise and celebration who rejoiced
in God and worshiped God because of His goodness in giving Christ
the bread of life. He left that place when God's
chastening hand came upon them and he went to Moab. And as you
remember, last week when we looked at Moab, we found out that he
was a son of Lot by his daughter, so he was a son of a wicked relationship. And God said he's not going to
come, his children are not going to come into the congregation
of the Lord. He said this in Deuteronomy 23
verse 3, until the 10th generation forever. So God is saying through
that that the children of Israel were not to mingle with the children
of Moab. Their seed would not intermingle
because God's people are to be separate. They're sanctified,
right? They're sanctified by God in
eternal election. He gave them to Christ. They're
sanctified by Christ when He died on the cross because He
made them holy by His blood. And they're sanctified in time
in their own history when the Spirit of God takes the gospel
and he sets them apart, giving them life with Christ dwelling
in them in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the regeneration.
And he also continues to sanctify them in their life as they walk
by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ living in them. This is
the work of God. And they are not to do what? Well, the new man, which is created
in us, We're created in Christ Jesus. We're created a new creature. That new man is Christ living
in us, that which we believe. We believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ through that new man. It's not the old man, but the
new man that believes on Christ. But Moab represents the world. They're separated from, aren't
they? They're kept out of the congregation
of the Lord. Notice here, so Elimelech had
a wife named Naomi, the man whose name means, my God is king, had
a wife whose name was Pleasant, and the name of his two sons,
Malon and Keleon. Now, Malon means weakness, sickness,
infirmity. And Keleon means someone who's
pining under wasting and destruction. So both of these names together
show us that the condition of Elimelech's sons, the names of
his sons were given to them as a prophecy. Their names were
given as a prophecy to foretell what would come of them. Malon
was sick and weak and sickly, and Kilion was wasting and destruction. His name means consumption. I
get this information, not from my own wisdom, but from people
like the Strong's Concordance and John Gill and Robert Hawker
and others, if you want to know. You can look at those sources.
So Malon and Kilion, are the children of the man who left
Bethlehem during famine and he went down into Moab, the place
representing those who are outside of the kingdom of God, the world,
okay? What happens when a man does
that? Well, we know what happened,
don't we? Remember Adam? He was created in the image of
God. But what happened? He took the fruit from his wife
Eve. They both ate of that fruit.
God forbid them to eat. And what happened? They both
died. And what happened to their children? Well, they also committed
the same sin and came under the condemnation of sin, but not
just the condemnation, but the corruption of it too. So we not
only became guilty and under death, but our whole nature became
fallen. And we corrupted ourselves in
our own sin. And this is exactly what's being
spoken of here. The man who said, whose name
means, my God is King, like Adam, created in the image of God,
had a relationship with God. He walked in the garden with
God. He fell and in his fall and departing from God, the house
of bread, he wouldn't eat of the tree of life, which is Christ
in him crucified, but he went to take of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, the law, the Old Testament, the old covenant
by which man can come to God by his own works. All right,
so now we see going down to Moab means they went down to the world
and they continued there. They didn't just stay during
the famine, but they stayed there longer than the famine. Now in
verse three, and Elimelech, Naomi's husband died and she was left
with her and her two sons. So it's clear in history that
Elimelech died and Naomi became a widow, but she was his husband.
And she was left and her two sons, and they took them wives
of the women of Moab. It's clear they're mingling now
with this ungodly people. And the name of the one was Orpah,
and the name of the other was Ruth. Now, Orpah means stiff-necked. How would you like to be named
that? Orpah, you probably get it confused with Oprah Winfrey,
because her mother misspelled the name. She meant to name her
after Orpah in the Bible, but she misspelled her name. It's
O-R-P-H-A-H, I think is the way she spells it. Just read it,
it says Orpah, Orpah, and it means stiff-necked. And the name
of the other was Ruth. And what does Ruth mean? Ruth
means a dear and intimate companion or friend. Now, again, these
things were not by accident. When their parents named them,
I suppose that, you know, here, they named her Orpah, and you
can look up on Google, what does Orpah mean, and they'll give
you some flowery thing. It's not true. In the Hebrew,
it meant the back of the neck, stiff neck. And Ruth is a very
excellent name. If you want to name your children,
don't name them Orpah. Give them this name, Ruth, or
Naomi, if they're daughters. Of course, if they're men, I
wouldn't choose either Melon, or Kilian, or Moab, or Ammon. Choose another name. Elimelech
would be OK. Now, the point here is that these
two men Malon, who married Ruth, and
Celeon, who married Orpah, and you know this because in chapter
four it says that Malon was the husband of Ruth before. These
two men, who Malon means weakness and sickness, And he had stayed
in Moab. He had integrated within them
and taken a wife of Moab, Ruth. And Kilian also had taken a wife,
Orpah. Both of them were fruitless.
Neither one of them bore any children. Well, this is consistent
with what happened when we fell in Adam. The old nature cannot
bear fruit to God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, Jesus said in John 3, 6, and that which is born
of the spirit is spirit. Only God can produce spiritual
fruit. And man can't do it, not fallen
man. Okay, so we see here now that
the man, Malon and the other man, Caelion, both died. Their wives were left as widows. Now, in the Old Testament, in
Deuteronomy chapter 24, you might want to look at this, Deuteronomy
chapter 24. I'll get my reference right here. So let's turn to that. This is significant throughout
this book. And you see it happening in this
book. So I want to get to this. In Deuteronomy chapter 24, It
says in, well, that's not the right reference. I wanted to
the other reference, which is, it must be in Leviticus, Leviticus
19. Let's go there. Leviticus is
before Deuteronomy. Hopefully I get the right reference
here. In Leviticus chapter 19, and let's try looking at verse
nine. Nope, that's also not it either. Okay. Oh, it's in Deuteronomy
25. I'm sorry, Deuteronomy 25. I'll try to edit that out of
the recording. Deuteronomy chapter 25, look
at verse five. It says here, if brethren dwell
together and one of them die and have no child, that's exactly
what happened to Malon and Chilion. The wife of the dead shall not
marry without unto a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go
in unto her and take her to him, to wife, and perform the duty
of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn,
which she beareth, shall succeed in the name of his brother. which
is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel." Okay, so
you understand what happens there? God's saying, if a man dies,
he was married, but he didn't have any children during the
time of his life, and he has a brother, he has to be his brother,
then that brother is to take that wife Of course, he wouldn't
be able to have another wife at that time, and marry her.
And then when they have a child, that child would be named, would
carry on the name of the one who died, the husband who died,
right? Who died here? Well, Maelon died,
and Celeon died, and both Ruth and Orpah were left. And so,
if they had someone who was the brother of Melon or the brother
of Keleon, then that man was to take either Ruth or Orpah
and marry them. And if they had children, then
the child would be named to the husband, so that that husband's
name would not perish and be forgotten forever. Okay, now
apply this to the spiritual case here. Both in Adam we died, and
you can see this throughout the nation of Israel. The nation
of Israel, in their history, departed from the Lord. And the
Jews came to the point of Christ coming into the earth, and they
were fruitless, right? And we ourselves, we also departed. There's the parable of the prodigal
son, for example. Or you could read in Romans 7,
where we were, as it were, married to God's law, but in the death
of Christ, being joined to him, we died to the law. So in all
these cases, God is showing that we ourselves, in Adam's case,
through the sin of Adam, we sinned and came under the sentence of
death. We therefore couldn't bear fruit. And unless someone
came who could marry the offspring who would be the bride left of
the deceased husband and marry her so that he would redeem her
and bear children under the name of the deceased husband, then
that husband's name would be forever forgotten. It would be
as if he never existed. Right? And that's exactly what
the Lord Jesus Christ did. He took, what is he called in
scripture? He's called the second Adam,
isn't he? He's also called the last Adam.
And this one, who is the second and last Adam, was portrayed
by the first one. But more importantly, in this
case, he's the one who came and loved, what, the church? And
gave himself for it. And as a result of wedding himself
to his people as their husband, what happens? Well, God produces
his offspring and the church is built because the seed is
the Spirit of God by the Word of God which gives them this
birth. And this birth comes about through that relationship between
the husband, Christ, and his people, whose husband died, which
was the law in our case, or it was we died in Adam. So we had
to be raised up. So here, in both of these cases,
we see these men who went to the world at the time of famine. They left the house of bread.
They left Christ and his people who worship and celebrate and
are thankful to God because of Christ and him crucified, given
for them. He left there. He had children. These two boys
both died. They're left. Their wives are
exposed now to being barren the rest of their lives without a
husband. And this is the setting of what happened here. Can't
you see it? God arranged this allegory in the book of Ruth
in order to teach us these things. Now when we go on here, we see
that Naomi's name is pleasant, sweet and pleasant. But she was
bereaved of her husband and her two sons. And she was left alone
with these two daughters-in-law, right? These two daughters-in-law.
And so that, unless her two daughters-in-law were faithful to her as a mother,
she would be left without any children forever. And her name,
with her husband's name, would just die in Israel. In other
words, she would be left not written in the Lamb's Book of
Life, you see? Okay, I hope that you can follow
that as we're looking at this. Now it helps to build the spiritual
interpretation of the physical and historical context here.
It says, as we read on. Then verse 6, Naomi rose with
her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country
of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab how that
the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread. Now she
hears about the gospel. Christ comes. She hears the gospel.
Christ is coming. He's God is giving them bread
in Bethlehem. Christ will be born at Calvary. Christ will be crucified. He
is the bread come down from heaven, not the manna in the wilderness,
but Christ, the true bread of life. And so she says to her
daughters-in-law in verse seven, 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 to the land of Judah. So now she's heading out,
both Orpah and Ruth are going with her. And Naomi said to her
two daughters in law, go return each to her mother's house. The
Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead
and with me. So she's she gives them a warm sending off. She did. She's not scolding them. She still loves them. But she
tells them, you go back. And what was she telling them
to go back to? Well, spiritually, she was saying to them, go back
to the world, go back to the idols, go back to the house you
came from. And remember what we read before
the service in Matthew chapter 9? When Jesus passed by Matthew
sitting at the receipt of custom, he told him, follow me. But Jesus
also had said in other places, he says, if you follow me, if
any man come after me, let him do what? Deny himself, take up
his cross daily, and follow me. So following Christ involves
a denial of ourselves and laying hold on the cross. We lay aside
everything in order to have Christ. That's what it means to follow
him. It's trusting him, not only at
the outset, but throughout our lives. We continue, we abide
in him by abiding in the doctrine that he taught us. Jesus said
in John 15, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, So
it's abiding in the truth of the gospel, walking by faith,
not just one-time faith, but a continuance in faith, continually
coming to Christ, looking to Him, trusting Him and His life
as my life, my access to God, and expecting Him to give me
all that He promised and relying on Him for it, okay? And so when
Naomi tells her daughters-in-law, go back, this is the way God
brings out the work of grace in the heart of His people. because
he's the one who does what? He's like the sower who casts
his seed on the four different grounds. And every ground there,
the wayside ground where the fowls of the air come and take
it away, or the thorn choke ground, which the thorns choke up, or
the stony ground where the seed springs up and withers, all those
grounds describe each of us by nature. We're like the stony
ground. If God doesn't make the seed
go deep into us, Satan can take it away in a moment because our
hearts are like the wayside. Or if we're like the thorn choked
ground or like the stony ground, because the word of God has to
penetrate our hearts. And the good ground is that ground
where Christ has put it into the heart of his people to know
that unless he plants the seed and waters it and gives increase
to it, then we cannot produce fruit to God. So we see how the
word of God through Naomi now comes to Ruth. And so Naomi,
who is pleasant, and sweet. She represents to us the Spirit
of Christ speaking through His Old Testament saints when He
spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So that when
Ruth hears about Christ, she's hearing the gospel and her heart
has been opened. Remember Acts 16, 14? Lydia,
whose heart the Lord opened. Or in Acts 2, it says, and he
says, as many as the Lord our God shall call. Remember in Acts
2 and verse 39 and Acts 2 and 47. So God added to the church
as many as should be saved. All these phrases in scripture,
whose heart the Lord opened, as many as the Lord called, as
many as should be saved. All these phrases and further
in Acts 13, 48, he says, as many as were ordained to eternal life,
believe. All of them show us that the
work of God is to plant the seed by His grace into the heart of
His people so that when His word comes and tries us, It has this
effect upon us that it produces a resolve not to leave Christ,
okay? But it doesn't happen in the
life of Orpah, because she's like the wayside ground, or the
stony or thorny ground. When trouble comes, or when the
desires of the flesh come, we're ready to cast Christ off. And
the only way that we're gonna be held is if the Lord who started
the work finishes it. He who began a good work in you,
he shall complete it unto the day of Christ Jesus. It's God
who is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,
right? They who received him were born
of God, not of their own will. So they believed on him because
it was God's work. All these things teach us in
so many places like this in scripture. that the work of God's grace
operating in us produces faith in Christ and that faith in Christ
is coming to him, it's continuing with him, it produces this exercise
out of that faith which is a resolve to follow him through thick and
thin. Okay, and that's what happens here. It says that Naomi said
to her two daughters-in-law, go return to your mother's house.
This is the trying of God's word that comes to us. The Lord deal
kindly with you. The Lord grant that you may find
rest each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed
them and they lifted up their voice and they wept. They're
all so sorry, but here we see the difference. She said, And
they said to her, surely we will return with you to your people. And Naomi turned again. No, my
daughters, why will you go with me? Are there yet any more sons
in my womb that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughter,
go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should
say I hope. I have hope if I should have
a husband also tonight and should also bear sons. Would you tarry
for them till they were grown? Would you stay for them from
having husbands? No, my daughters. For it grieved
with me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone
out against me. And they lifted up their voice and they wept
again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, Ruth claimed to her. And she
said, behold, thy sister. She's speaking to Ruth now in
verse 15. She said, behold, thy sister-in-law
has gone back to her people. and to her gods return thou after
thy sister-in-law." Orpah leaves, Orpah goes back to her gods.
So what's happening here? Naomi's too old. She can't have
sons. If she had other sons, then those
sons could marry these two girls, but she can't. Why? Because in
the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was like a dried and
withered root. Remember Isaiah? Christ came
as a root out of dry ground. He wasn't born through Adam. He was born through the woman.
And he would come out of the woman, he would be born as a
man of woman, and he would be conceived by the Holy Spirit
of God. And that's the way he could come. Naomi couldn't bear
it. The nation of Israel couldn't
do what God had to do through the Spirit of God, through the
Virgin Mary. And that's what he did. He brought
forth his son. from a woman and he was born under the law in
order that he might redeem those who were under the law. So Naomi,
as the Old Testament saints, she can't produce the son who
would be married to these women. No, a redeemer had to come. He
had to be the near kinsman of their former husbands. So, but
here, what I wanted to get to here is notice this in verse
16. This is Ruth's response. This
is that resolve that springs from God-given faith, working
in the heart. Ruth said, entreat me not to
leave thee. So what was the first thing she's
asking? Don't ask me to leave you. So she wants to go with
her, doesn't she? She wants to go with Naomi and
she'll follow her. That's what it means. She's gonna
go with Naomi and follow Naomi wherever she goes, right? This is following Christ, isn't
it? Who put that in Ruth's heart? Who put it in the heart of anyone
to follow Christ? Well, Jesus said in John 6, 65,
that he said, no one can come to me except the Father which
has sent me, draw him. So Ruth didn't do this, God put
it in her heart. What happened? How did God do
that? Naomi had been with Ruth now for at least 10 years and
she had heard of the God of Israel. And what would the God of Israel
have told his people? Well, it passed down through
Abraham, right? That God was going to justify the heathen
through faith. Remember Galatians chapter 3?
That was a promise God made to Abraham that through him God
was going to justify the heathen through faith. That's the gospel.
So Naomi was telling Ruth and Orpah about the Lord Jesus Christ
who would come and redeem his people. Now the details of that
aren't given in the book of Ruth, but that's the covenant God made
with Abraham. That was passed down through
Abraham, through all of the descendants of Israel. And that's what every
believing child of God must believe. in order to be part of the true
Israel. So Naomi obviously was. And so
she would have told Ruth and Orpah these things. And Ruth,
having heard the gospel, asked Naomi, Don't let me leave you. Don't tell me to leave you. Don't
ask me to leave you. Don't tell me to return back
to the world and the idols from following you. That's what she's
saying here. And isn't that what God produces in the heart of
his people when he calls us? It says in Psalm 27. He says this in verse four, one
thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after that I
may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life
to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
And then in verse eight, it says, when you said, seek my face,
my heart said to thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Why do you believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ? Because he drew you. Having given
you faith in him, Are you going to depart? Do you want to leave? Do you want to go back? Of course
not. With Peter we would say, Lord, you have the words of eternal
life. We believe and are sure that
you are the Christ, the Son of God. How could we leave the one
who has life? We were brought out of death
and darkness and the bondage to the law and the curse of the
law. And now how could we depart from you? And so Ruth is entreating
Naomi not to ask her or try to get her to depart or tell her
to leave her. She wants to follow her. And
this is God trying his people so that he can prove the grace.
He can prove that this is God's work in the heart of his people.
Now we might think, well, yeah, but there's sometimes I feel
like, you know, I feel cold and I feel distant and seems like
I wonder if I'm even, I've ever begun to follow the Lord, what
am I to do? Oh, this is the Lord trying you,
isn't it? This is the Lord trying me. What happens when you're
under those situations? Well, if you're God's people,
you're going to flee again to Christ, aren't you? You're going
to forsake all confidence in yourself in light of the fact
that you've corrupted yourself like the Moabites did, that you
have forsaken the house of bread. You've done everything to destroy
yourself and yet God has rescued you and brought you into this
relationship with Christ that even though you yourself find
yourself to be have no reason to expect in analyzing yourself
that you're one of God's people, you say, yet, yet, the Lord Jesus
Christ is my only hope. Look at this in Hosea, again,
chapter 13. See how God speaks to his beloved
people. He says in Hosea 13, verse nine,
O Israel, Now, put Elimelech in that place,
put Naomi in that place, put yourself in that place, put the
prodigal son in that place, put the whole nation of Israel in
that place. Oh, Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself. And we have, haven't we? We've
corrupted ourselves, but in me is thine help. That's the way
that our life experience is. We find it over and over again
to be true. I have ruined myself like the
prodigal son, and yet God, by his grace, has put this resolve
in the heart of the believer, I can't leave Christ. And so
he says in Isaiah, Chapter one, he says this, the ox, verse three,
the ox knows his owner, the ass, his master's crib, but Israel
does not know. My people does not consider,
ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are
gone away backward. That's what we would do. That's
what we did. Read Romans chapter one and two
and three. Why should you be stricken anymore?
You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, like
Malon. The whole heart faint, like Kilion.
From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness
in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have
not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
See, God is saying he has thrashed this nation. They've been wounded
and they're so stupid that they are just laying there so wounded
that he can't beat them anymore than God has done this. And he
says, the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From
the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there's no
soundness. Verse seven, your country is desolate. Your cities
are burned with fire. Your land, strangers devour it
in your presence and is desolate as overthrown by strangers. And
the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as
a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Then verse
nine, listen to the gospel. Except the Lord of hosts had
left unto us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom
and Gomorrah And that's the truth here. That's what we see here. God is bringing Ruth out just
like he brings all of his people out, out of Moab, out of death
and into Bethlehem and into life, into the blessing of this Redeemer
and the children that would be born to Ruth in the name of the
dead in order that Christ would keep all of the children of Adam
from perishing. He came to save his people and
he raised up a name unto those who were born of Adam. Amazing,
isn't it? Let's pray, let's pray. Father,
we thank you for Christ, our Redeemer. We pray, Lord, that
you would teach us in our heart so that our hearts would be opened,
you would call us, and then we would call upon you. And we know,
Lord, that in the way you do this, through your word, through
your providence, through trouble, that it hurts, it leaves us afraid,
it leaves us troubled, and we run by your grace, we run to
find shelter and a hiding place in the Lord Jesus Christ. We
call on you and we ask you, Lord, don't let us depart and don't
tell us to depart. We do not want to leave you.
We'll go wherever you go and be found wherever you are. with
your people and with your God. And we want to live and die with
you. And we know, Lord, that in your death, we actually live.
What grace this is that you would so save your people. In Jesus
name we pray. Amen.