Let us turn this morning in our
Bibles to the book of Ruth. Ruth is a very small four chapter
book between the book of Judges and the first book of Samuel.
And this morning we're going to look at the first five verses. Now it came to pass in the days
when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. And
a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country
of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the name of
the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi, and
the name of his two sons, Malon and Chilion, Ephraites of Bethlehem
Judah. And they came into the country
of Moab and continued there. Alemalak, Naomi's husband, died,
and she was left and her two sons. And they took them wives
of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah,
and the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelled there about
10 years. And Malon and Chilion died also,
both of them. And the woman was left of her
two sons and her husband. Title of my message this morning
is going to be the other side of the fence. The other side
of the fence. We've all heard that saying the
grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. If you've
ever seen in the country, a cow stick her head through barbed
wire, and stretch her neck as far as she can stretch it and
eat grass on the other side of the fence. And you look at it,
and it looks just like the grass on the side of the fence that
she's on. But for some reason, the grass
looks greener on the other side of the fence. And I'm sure that
to this man, a limeleck, the grass looked greener on the other
side of the fence. That is, he left the land of
Israel and moved into Moab. Let me just remind us that this
is part of the all scripture, which is given by inspiration
of God, and it's profitable. All scripture is profitable.
It's profitable for doctrine, for teaching, for correction,
for reproof, and for instruction in righteousness. And that would
be a few words for a good message
there, instruction in righteousness. But I pray this morning as we
look at this passage, these five verses, that the Lord will make
this part of the word of God profitable to each and every
one of us. I'm going to divide the message
into two parts. First, a look at the time of
this event. Let's look at the time of this
event. You notice in verse 1 it says,
Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled. This was a period of about 450
years. It began after the death of Joshua. And I would just say this this
morning, before Joshua died, he told the nation these few
things. First, he said, Behold, this
day I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all
your hearts and in all your souls Now listen, that not one good
thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your
God spoke concerning you. Not one thing hath failed. Not one good thing that God had
promised to the nation of Israel. he delivered on his promise. Not one good thing had failed. And then after that he said,
I have given you a land, that is
God, I have given you a land for which you did not labor,
and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them,
and of vineyards, and olive yards, which you planted not do you
eat. We have a description of this
time in the last verse of the book before this. If you look
back to Judges, the last verse there, it says, in those days
there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. If you read through the Book
of Judges, you find that saying three times repeated, there was
no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right
in his own eyes. In other words, there was no
authority. There was no authority, and so
it was a time of chaos. It was a time of turmoil. Now,
if you would keep your places here and look with me to Psalm
106, we have a brief description, an inspired description of this
time. Here in Psalm 106, beginning with verse 34, the psalmist said, they did not
destroy the nations, that is the nation of Israel, they did
not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them,
but were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. And
they served their idols, which were snare unto them. Yea, they
sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils and shed
innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters,
whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land
was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their
own works and went a-whoring with their own inventions. Therefore
was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, insomuch
that he abhorred his own inheritance, and he gave them into the hand
of the heathen, and they that hated them ruled over them. Their
enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection
under their hand. Many times did he, that is God,
many times did God deliver them, but they provoked him with their
counsel and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless,
he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry, and
he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the
multitude of his mercies. You read through the book of
Judges and you see this repeated over and over and over again. His people, they began to worship
idols, idols of the nations that they did not destroy. They learned
from them. And so there was a repetition
of idolatry, punishment, crying unto the Lord, and the Lord in
mercy delivering them. Our text here this morning says,
now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, during
this awful period of time, there was a famine in the land. Now
the famine was a consequence of their sin. There's no question
about that. The famine that God sent into
the land that caused this man to leave the land was a famine
that God sent because of the sins of the nation of Israel. God had warned them previously
before they ever came into the land. God warned them of what
would happen if they despised his word, his statutes. God said, I will make your heaven
as iron. Well, that probably brought the
famine about. The heavens became as iron, no
rain. And your earth is brass. Ever
tried to plow, plant ground that's like brass? And your strength shall be spent
in vain. You go out there and work, trying
to plant a crop, Spend all your strength, your labor, it's for
nothing. God said, I'm going to do this
if you forsake my statutes, my word. For your land shall not
yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their
fruit. This happened early on in the
history of the judges. this event that we're looking
at this morning. I said the time period is about
450 years. When the judges ruled, there
was no king, no authority. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. And it ended up every time in
the nation of Israel going off into idolatry and God bringing
chastisement, judgment upon them. And then they cried unto the
Lord in their distress. God raised up Gideon, Samson,
Japheth, we could just go through the book of Judges, all of the
various Judges, Deborah, that God raised up to deliver His
people. This happened early on because
the main character in this book of Ruth is a man by the name
of Boaz. You say, well, I thought Ruth
would be the main character. No, I don't think so. The main
character in this book is a man by the name of Boaz who was the
son, now listen, who was the son of Rahab. Remember, Rahab
is the woman who received the spies that Joshua sent into the
land before they ever entered in. And one of the men of, Judah
married her, and Boaz, rather, was her son. And he's going to
see, if we are allowed by God to continue through this book,
we're going to see that he's the main character. You say,
why is he the main character in this book? There's things
said here about Ruth that are so noble. Absolutely, absolutely. But you see, Boaz is a picture. He's a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ. All of the scripture, in some
way, from Genesis to Revelation, in every book, we're to see Christ. And Christ is presented to us
in this book by Boaz, who is what? He is the kinsman redeemer. He had to be kin. to Ruth to
redeem her, and Christ had to become our kinsman in the fullness
of the time God sent forth His Son, made of a woman. Yes, He had to be born of our
bone and flesh of our flesh that He might be our Redeemer. So the main character is Boaz,
and he was the son of a woman who received the spies when they
first came into the land. This happened early on in those
450 years. Well, second, I want us to look
at the man who took his family to Moab. And I have six things
I want to bring out or mention to us this morning about this
man, Elimelech. First, his name. His name, Elimelech. It means God is my king. God is my king. What the Lord
Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation wrote to the church at Sardis
was certainly true of this man. The Lord wrote to that church,
thou hast a name that thou livest but are dead. This man had a
name that God was his king, but his actions revealed God wasn't
his king. He was his own king. He was his
own ruler. God is my king. He had a name,
but he did not live up to his name. This reminds us today that
there are many professing people all over the world They profess
to be Christians. They have a name, the name Christian. God is my King. That's really
what that name should mean. The Lord is my Lord. Our Lord
said, except a man deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. He cannot be my disciple. And you cannot deny yourself
and then rule your life. In the scriptures in the New
Testament, and this is ever so important, my friends, when you
have in the same verse the term Lord and Savior, it's always
Lord first. Brother Ralph Barnard used to
say, don't tell me who your Savior is, who's your Lord? Who's your
Lord? You see, this is where the rubber
meets the road. Who's your Lord? This man had
a name. God is my king. But God wasn't
his king. He made his own choices, made
his own decisions. He didn't consult the Lord. If
he had, he would never have left the land of Israel. Our Lord
Jesus describes these people At the end of his sermon, which
has been termed Sermon on the Mount, he spoke of this group
when he said, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of
my Father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? Have we not preached
in thy name? Many, our Lord said, are going
to say that. Have we not prophesied in thy
name? And in thy name haven't we cast
out devils? And in thy name we've done many
wonderful works? And no doubt all of those things
were true. All of them. And then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that
work iniquity. You see, it's one thing to have
a name, but not possess. To be a professing believer,
but not a possessing believer. To have a name. Yes, I'm a Christian. Do you know Christ? Is he real
to you? Do you love him, honor him, serve
him? Is that your desire above everything
else? Can you say with the psalmist,
David, whom have I in heaven but thee? And whom upon the earth
do I desire? This man, Elimelech, my God is
king, but he wasn't. The second thing that I see about
this man, his exchange. His exchange. Let me tell you
what I mean by that. The scripture here says he went
to dwell in the country of Moab. He exchanged one famine for another
one, much worse. He really did. He exchanged one
famine for another famine, much worse. There was a famine of
bread in Canaan, but think about this, in the land of Moab, there
was a famine of all revealed truth. There was no word of God
in Moab. There was no witness to the Lord
in Moab. Think of what he turned his back
on. When he packed up his bags and
headed off to Moab, he turned away, he turned his back on all
the revealed truth that was in the world at that time. Both
in the book of Joshua and the book of Judges in the 18th chapter,
we read that the house of the Lord was in Shiloh at that time. house of the Lord was in Shiloh. Now Shiloh, if you were to look
on a map of Canaan, you would see that Shiloh was located about
in the middle, almost dead in the middle, of the land of Canaan,
making it accessible to all of the Israelites to go where the
house of the Lord was where they had pitched the tabernacle. That's
what it has reference to. The tabernacle was pitched there,
the house of the Lord in Shiloh, easily accessible to all of the
people. He turned his back on that. He
turned his back on the great day of atonement being celebrated. When the blood of the Sacrifice,
the Lord's goat was placed, sprinkled upon the mercy seat and before
the mercy seat. He'd never experienced that in
Moab. He'd never go to the tabernacle
where that would take place. At the tabernacle every morning
and every evening, there was a lamb slain. And they pictured,
we know, the Lamb of God. Remember when John the Baptist
pointed out the Lord Jesus Christ, recorded in John chapter one,
behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. You
know that word taketh, in many translations it is beareth. Behold the Lamb of God that beareth
away. And that's what he was, or that's
what he became rather. He became a sin bearer. Peter tells us that he bare our
sins in his own body on the tree. That was all pictured there.
And he turned his back on that. You know, there's a prophecy
that comes later in the Bible, after the book of Ruth, later
in the minor prophets. It's found in the prophet Amos. And God told them at that time,
behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send
a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread, nor thirst
for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord." God said,
I'm going to send a famine. This man went into a land of
famine as far as hearing the word of the Lord was concerned. I suppose almost every generation
has thought that we live in this time. But folks, you know it's
so today. When you look at the so-called
Christian churches of our land, for the
most part you can go into many of them, I'd say in some of these
places the majority of them, and you never hear the word of
God. You don't hear the word of God.
The preacher's very adept at entertaining people. giving a
very short discourse, a little sermonette about how you can
be a better husband, and a better wife, and a better parent. How-to
messages, one after the other. How-to, how-to, how-to. I want to know how a sinner can
be saved. You're not going to hear that.
Why? Because there's a famine in the
land. a famine for hearing the word
of the Lord. Those of us here in this congregation,
I don't know, I'm sure we're not as thankful as we should
be, and I'm talking about myself as well as everyone else here,
that God has kept us with his word. I was reading about a preacher
Yesterday again, I've read this book several years ago, John
Jasper. He was born a slave in Richmond,
Virginia. And he lived through the Civil
War and got his freedom, of course. God saved him. God called him
to preach. And God used him there. During the days of slavery, he
couldn't preach unless there was a white preacher in attendance. And the white preachers were
so prejudiced against him preaching that sometimes they would preach,
they only had so much time when they could have a service, and
the white preacher would try to preach. One man preached for
two hours, thinking John Jasper wouldn't have any time, maybe
about 15 or 20 minutes. But the thing is, the hand of
the Lord was upon John Jasper. And in 15 to 20 minutes, he said
more and God did more than in those two hours of that other
man's so-called preaching. There's a famine in the land.
There's a famine, I believe, in our day, in this land, for
hearing the word of the Lord. Let us be thankful. This is Thanksgiving
week. Let us never cease to give thanks
unto the Lord. And, and John Jasper, the thing
that impresses me so much reading his book again, he, you could
not, you could not cause him not to believe the word of God. I mean, he just believed it.
He didn't know what these so-called, as he said, philosophers, what
they said and about how far the sun is and how long it takes
to get there and all the things that he just stuck with the word
of God. That's what I want to do, don't
you? Just stick with the word of God. This man, he didn't,
a limeleck. He exchanged one famine, a famine
of bread, for a famine of hearing the word of God, of turning his
back on the things of God. Notice the third thing, his responsibility. He took his wife and his two
sons with him. Now, you know, according to the
word of God, this is God's way, and it's the best way because
it's God's way. But God has determined that the
man is the head of the home. He's the head of the family,
which among other things means that he is responsible. He's
responsible for the spiritual welfare of his family. Yes, he's
responsible to provide food and clothes and shelter and those
things which are necessary, but don't forget, he's also responsible
for the spiritual welfare of his family. I want you to turn
back here with me to the book of Exodus just a moment. Exodus
chapter 12, and in this chapter we have recorded the first Passover. And we'll just read a few verses
here, but in Exodus chapter 12, verse 3, Speak you unto all the congregation
of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall
take to them every man a lamb according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for a house. And then skip down to verse 5.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You
shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats. What a picture
of Christ, the Lamb of God. without blemish, without spot,
without any sin of his own. And you shall keep it up until
the 14th day of the same month in the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel." Now notice this, shall kill it. It
is singular, isn't it? How many lambs were killed that
every family might have a lamb? And yet it's spoken of as one,
a picture of Jesus Christ, the one and only Savior of the world. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me. All
these religions trying to get together, and so-called Christians,
Mohammeds, and Buddhists, and all of these people getting together,
a conference to save the earth, People need to be concerned about
their soul salvation. Yes, we want to do what's right
to this planet, my friends, but when you bring all these religions
together, we're not worshiping the same God. That's a lie, and
that's one of Satan's favorite lies. Well, we all worship the
same God. We're just taking different roads. No, there's only one road. One
way to the Father, and that's through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
You shall take it, God told Moses. Keep it up until the 14th day
of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel shall kill it in the evening, and they shall take
of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the
upper door post of the houses wherein they eat it. The blood, when I see the blood,
the Lord God said, I will pass over that house. But in every
house where there's no blood, the firstborn in that house is
going to die. Look down further in that chapter
to verse 12, where I will pass through the land of Egypt this
night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast and And against all the gods of Egypt, I will
execute judgment. I am the Lord, and the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And
when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague
shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt. And this day shall be unto you
for a memorial. This is what I want to bring
out. This is going to be a memorial, Moses. In other words, until
the Passover lamb came, the nation of Israel was to observe this
every year. It wasn't the Lord's Supper.
We observed the Lord's Supper in remembrance of Christ. They were to do this in remembrance
of this first Passover every year. All right, look further
down there in the text to verse 26. And it shall come to pass
when your children, when your children shall say unto you,
what mean you by this service? That you shall say, it is the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel and Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed their head in worship. It shall be a memorial. Alimilek's
children in Moab, his two sons, they would never see this. They
would never ask him, what does this mean? What does this mean? He had a responsibility, as all
parents have, for their children, for their home, for their wife
and their children. And that doesn't mean the wife
is not engaged in teaching the children. Many times the mother
spends more time with the children than the father, and both are
responsible. But the man especially is held
responsible for his house. The fourth thing we see here
back in our text, his continuance. In verse two, we read that he
continued there, the last three words in verse two, and continued
there. The New American Standard Version
has this, and remained there. I may be reading into this, but
it seems that he settled there. He began to put down his roots.
He remained there. He continued there. When he left,
no doubt when he left his home for Moab, he intended to be there
the very shortest time possible. very shortest time period possible. That's how long we're going to
stay in Moab and we're going to come back. But no, he continued
there. He remained there. I have a pastor
friend who wrote this saying several years ago and I can't
quote it exactly, but it has, it goes something like this.
It really impressed me at the time and it still does. Sin as
a way of taking us farther than we want to go and keeping us
longer than we want to stay. Now that's just so. Sin has a
way of taking us farther than we want to go and keeping us
longer than we want to stay. He remained there. He continued
there. The fifth thing is death. In
verse 3, and Limelech, Naomi's husband, died. I would imagine
that when Limelech left Bethlehem, which, by the way, means the
house of bread. That's where the Lord Jesus Christ
was born, who is the bread of life. Bethlehem means the House
of Bread. When Elimelech left the House
of Bread for Moab, I just know he fully expected, I'll be back
here soon. I want to be buried here. But
he didn't return. I think sometimes here in Houston,
Texas, hardly a week goes by that we don't read or hear on
the news, rather. And I think about this. On the
interstate, there's a wreck. Someone has been killed. I mean,
people, every day, leave their home, kiss their wife goodbye,
or their wife kisses her husband goodbye, fully expecting, I'll
be back. I'll be back this afternoon,
who don't come back. Lemelick, I'm persuaded. was
persuaded he would be back, but he didn't come back. He remained
there. The fact that he died, that's
not unusual, is it? Because like Joshua said, this
day I go the way of all the earth. The way of all the earth, it's
appointed unto all men, once to die, but after this the judgment. The fact that he died, is not
amazing. Death is in this world because
of sin. Yet the Lord Jesus Christ said,
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. What did
he mean by that? Whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Well, he certainly did not mean
that those who believe in him will never die physically. But
notice his words, whosoever liveth, has he given you life? Has he
given you life this morning? And you believe in him, you'll
never die. Now you'll change locations.
And the sooner the better for some of us. You'll change locations. You'll leave this world of sin
and death and crime and hatred and everything else that we see
around us. But you won't die. Actually,
you'll just begin to live. Really. You'll go to be with
your savior. Go to be with him. Look upon
his face who loved you and gave himself for you. The body dies,
but the soul doesn't die, and the soul doesn't sleep either. Some people, false cults, have
tried to teach over the years, well, the soul sleeps in the
grave. No, no, no, no, no. The body
sleeps in the grave. The body turns back to dust.
But the soul, to depart and to be with Christ, which is far
better. That's our hope. The last thing
about this man, his influence. In verse four, we read that his
two sons took them wives of the women of Moab. Could not help
but notice they didn't marry until he died. And I wonder if
as long as he was alive, he would not allow his sons to marry a
foreign woman. As the scripture says, a woman
of Moab was prohibited from coming into the congregation of the
Lord until the 10th generation. That's what we read in the book
of Deuteronomy. But they married, and he's the
one who took them there to begin with. So it was his influence.
The Targum, the Targum, which is an Aramaic paraphrase of a
portion of the Old Testament, reads like this. Because they
transgressed the decree of the word of the Lord, and joined
affinity with strange people, their days were shortened. They
died there in the land. Now in closing, someone's going
to say, everything you said, preacher, I can agree with, but
don't you realize that one of God's elect One of the ones that
God has loved from eternity is going to be fetched from Moab,
Ruth. Don't you realize that? I do. But here's the thing. Limelech
didn't know that. He didn't know what God had purposed. And our responsibility always
is to what God has revealed. His Word, what He has revealed
in His Word. Our responsibility is to His
Word, to obey the Word of God. You know, God brought good out
of what Joseph's brothers did, didn't He? But that doesn't make
what Joseph's brothers did right. They sinned. They did what they
did out of Jealousy or envy or anger or hatred, whatever. That's
what they did. Yes, God brought good out of
it, but that didn't excuse what they did. We believe, I believe with all
of my heart, and you know this is true, and I've taught this
as long as this church has been in existence, that God is absolutely
sovereign in all things. At the same time, we do not deny
our responsibility. We are responsible. Elimelech
was responsible for his actions. You say, can you reconcile those
two things? I don't need to reconcile them.
They're friends. You only need to reconcile those
that are not friends. God's sovereignty and man's responsibility
Both are maintained and taught in the word of God from beginning
to end. May the Lord bless His word to
all of us here this morning.