“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 Mahlon and Chilion Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. And Elimelech, 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 ten years. And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Then she arose 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. 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 ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest. each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should have an husband also tonight, and should also bear sons: would ye tarry for them till they were grown? Would ye stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice, and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother in law, but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her. So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty; why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty had afflicted me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab; and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest” (Ruth 1).
There are three characters, beloved reader, in this chapter, which bring before us and illustrate three entirely distinct states of soul. In Naomi you have the sad and solemn case of a backslider; in Orpah you have the fearful condition of a soul that prefers the world to Christ; and in Ruth you have the beautiful picture of a soul that prefers Christ to everything. You can easily tell, my friend, which of these three characters is yours. Are you a backslider? Are you one who prefers the world to Christ? or are you one who prefers Christ to anything and everything? Do not say you do not know; that is not true. You do know. When I was in the world I knew quite well that I preferred the world, and that in my heart there was nothing but enmity to God’s beloved Son.
In the Old Testament Scriptures, as well as in the New, you have the truth unfolded that God loves us, and wants us to know and love Himself. Men do not believe it, but there it is. Look at Naomi, she is the picture of one who has known the love of God, and turned her back upon Him for something in the world. Is such an one reading this paper?—one who has known the love of God, walked for a while with the Lord, confessing His name, seemed for a time really true-hearted to Him, enjoyed the sweetness of His presence, and then something has come in—something perhaps in your worldly circumstances—and little by little, insensibly perhaps at first, your back has been turned on the Lord. At first the turning away was very slight, but it was turning from Him, and little by little, little by little, you got farther and farther off, till at last the soul woke up to find it was utterly empty.
Everything is bitter in the soul that has given up Christ for the world. “Call me not Naomi (that is, pleasant), call me Mara (that is., bitter),” says Naomi (vs. 20). Oh, reader, are you one that has got back into the world, and turned your back on the Lord? Fain would I have you turn right round to Him again this moment. Oh, wandering one, return, return! Backslider, the Father has missed thee from the family circle, the Savior has missed thee from His side, the Shepherd has missed thee from the flock; oh, return, return! Nothing has changed His heart towards you; spite of all your wanderings, He loves you still; He would have you back by His own blessed side. In this chapter I get him bringing back Naomi.
Ten years she and her family had been away from Judah; yet she ought never to have left Judah, the place where God was known. It was quite natural she should go when there was a famine there, you say. Yes, quite natural, for nature always turns its back upon God; but see the folly of it. Could not God have maintained them in Bethlehem? “Bethlehem” means “the house of bread”; and could not God have maintained them there in peace and plenty? But what does she get by leaving it? Does she get peace and plenty in Moab? No, the heart that leaves God for the world gets plenty of trouble, but not one scrap of peace; a soul that has slipped away from the Lord, and got back into the world, wakes up, sooner or later, to find itself in misery and wretchedness.
Naomi leaves Judah with her husband and her two sons; a little while, and the one she loves best in the world is taken from her side and laid in the cold tomb. Ah, the Lord knows how to touch a heart by a sorrow like that. He says, Child! I love you too much to let that pillar remain by your side on which you are leaning. I will take that pillar away that you may lean on Myself. And now Mahlon is sick and dies. (“Mahlon” means sick, and “Chilion” pining.) And Chilion too is “pining” and dies; and she is left alone. Here comes the epitome of her history. “The woman was left of her two sons and her husband” (vs. 5). Thank God He did not leave her! Thank God, though you leave Him, He does not leave you. Do you know what passing through grief, such as this scripture unfolds, means? He would draw your heart by it to Himself.
And now see how the grace of God draws the heart back to Himself. Naomi rises up to return; not alone because she had found Moab only a graveyard, but because in the moment of her deepest distress and sorrow, when everything was broken up in Moab, she heard that there was plenty in the land she had left. Fool that she was ever to leave it! She hears that the Lord had “visited his people in giving them bread.” Oh, how our Father loves to visit His people and give them bread! He may chasten His people when they need it, but the delight of His heart is to fill them with joy to overflowing. It was the grace of the Lord that drew her back.
What drew Peter, after his terrible denial of his Master? It was that look of love. Though all should deny Him, he would not. He had said he would go to prison and to death for Him, but never deny Him. Full of self-confidence, which is often the secret of backsliding, he says he will never deny Him; but he was sleeping when he ought to have been praying; he was cutting off the servant’s ear when he ought to have been quiet; he forsook Christ, and fled, when he should have been near Him; and though he went into the palace of the high priest afterward (it was John who took him in), he did not get there by clinging to Christ, and a little servant girl can make him afraid, and deny that he ever knew his blessed Lord.
“Thou also wast with Jesus,” she said.
“Woman, I know Him not,” replies Peter.
Then another said, “Thou art also of them.”
And Peter said, “Man, I am not.”
But soon a third urges, “Did I not see thee in the garden with him?”
And then Peter began to curse and to swear, saying, “I know not this man of whom ye speak.”
Terrible picture of our weakness, when away from God! Within earshot of Jesus he can turn round and deny that he ever knew Him. And Jesus heard it, and turned round and looked at him. “You do not know Me, Peter?” That was what that look said. “You do not know Me?”
What kind of a look do you think the Lord gave Peter? Was it a withering look of scorn and contempt? Did it say, “Miscreant, liar,” in its glance? He deserved that it should, but oh, no, it was a look of broken-hearted love, of love so tender and strong. A look that said, “I love you still, Peter: if you do not know me, I know I love you.” And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.
I do not wonder that he wept bitterly. The grace of the Heart that he had wounded broke him down; and then afterward we are told of the Lord’s meeting and restoring this backsliding one. He appeared to Simon after His resurrection. The fact is recorded, but did you ever wonder how He restored him? Did you ever wonder what passed between the Lord and Peter that day? He does not tell us. We only know the fact. The Lord does not tell out all that goes on between a soul and Himself. He not only restores Peter, but He brings him to judge the thing that led him away, and then He trusts him again. The backslider never gets right with God till he has it all out with Him. When you get back, and judge the point of departure, then He restoreth the soul. The Lord does what we never do. We say, “I could never trust so-and-so again, after what has passed.” The Lord shows out to all how He can trust Peter after He has made him judge himself.
On the shore of Galilee’s lake the Lord publicly restores Peter. First of all He says, “Lovest thou me more than these?” Not more than these fishes; but Peter had said that though all should deny Him, he would not. Peter, using a word which implies more than love in general, answers, “Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I have a special affection for Thee.”
A second time He asks him, and a second time Peter answers, “Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I have a special affection for Thee.”
And now a third time the Lord puts the question. Three times Peter had denied Him, three times He interrogates him; and this third time He uses Peter’s own word, “Hast thou a special affection for me?” and this time Peter flings back the door of his heart and says, Lord, look in. “Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I have a special affection for Thee.” No one else would think I love Thee, but Thou knowest; no one else could believe it possible but Thou. The Lord seems to say, “Now, Peter, you take care of what I love best. I will put into your care that which is dearest to Me. ‘Feed my lambs,’ ‘Shepherd My sheep,’ ‘Feed My sheep.’ I can trust you now that you distrust yourself.” That is how the Lord restores, and gives back confidence. May He thus restore you this moment, O wandering one!
Now turn and look at these two young people who say they will go up with Naomi. Naomi does get back to the land, but on the road see the mischief she does. Oh, backsliding one, if restored, beware how you again slip away from the Lord, lest you be the cause of everlasting ruin to some other soul or souls under your very roof. There is nothing so terrible as backsliding, nothing so disastrous as slipping away from the Lord!
Both these two young people had passed through the same sorrow, were in the same circumstances, under the same influences, and with the same testimony before them; for Naomi must have unfolded something of God to them, to make Ruth speak as she does afterward. Orpah thus had the same opportunities, the same privileges, the same advantages, as Ruth, and at first they turn their backs on the world together. These two seriously mean to leave it; and I doubt not, beloved unsaved soul, you too have had your moments of serious thought; you have had your moments of conviction, have you not? Have you never trembled as you heard the preacher reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come? You know you have. But have you decided for Christ? No doubt you have said, “It is better to be a Christian than not to be one.” Your sins have come up before you, and you have trembled as you thought you must some day have to do with God, and you have felt afraid of the judgment to come.
But perhaps you say, “I have had no convictions, no anxiety, no fear for the future, or thought about my soul and God.” Do you say that? Ah! then, my careless, Christless friend, there are days of hopeless sorrow before you; days of terrible conviction, days of fearful anxiety, days of agony, and remorse, and terror unspeakable; but where? In the place where hope never comes; when anxiety, and convictions, and sorrow and remorse come all too late. Oh, that you may be aroused, awakened, convicted now, my unsaved readers; now, while you have still time to decide for Christ!
It may be, with some of you, that deep sorrow has been known in your heart; death has knocked, not at your door, but at the door of one you deeply loved; and as that one has been taken from you you have felt, “How would it have been had I been called away like that?” Ah, what would it be if you died now?
Young man, what would the issue be if you died this moment in the state in which you are? Where would you spend your eternity—your long, your endless eternity?
Hoary old man, grown old in forgetfulness of God, grown gray in rejection of Christ, with all your sins still upon you, if God called you away at this very moment, where would you spend your eternity?
Young woman, so gay and thoughtless, thinking only of the world, caring only for pleasure, with no thought of Christ, unwashed, un-forgiven, if God were to cut you down now, as you read this, where would you go to spend this endless eternity that is before you? It is high time you were converted. Oh, turn round to Jesus, your sins shall all be forgiven; you shall taste the blessedness of knowing the Lord. It is better far to belong to Him, happier far to be numbered among “His own”; and could you have a moment better than the present to accept Him as your Savior? Could you have a more important moment than this moment, in which to decide for Christ? Impossible! He loves you and wants to save you. His name, Jesus (i.e. Jehovah, the Savior), may well invite your trust; but put it off, put it off till tomorrow, and what shall then be? God knows.
But a few days ago I was called to see one who had been the day before in life and health in six hours she was a corpse; and, friend, it may be so with you tomorrow, or even today, and what do you think it would be to die in your sins? Think! think! I warn you; be warned in time! Have you no care for your precious soul; no anxiety to flee from the wrath to come; no desire to be with God’s beloved Son by-and-by? Oh, would you not like to know that your sins can be forgiven? Would you not like to be found among the ransomed of the Lord, by-and-by? Would you not like that your voice should swell that chorus of praise to the One who died to save you? Would you not like to be there in that scene of life and glory? Oh, decide,
DECIDE NOW, DECIDE FOR CHRIST!
Truly, this world is a scene of sorrow and death. What had Naomi found Moab to be? A graveyard! And what is this world? A great graveyard! Sorrow and death everywhere. The hearse that you meet as you go into the street tells you of death. If you turn from it and go another way, what will presently meet your eye? A house with the blinds all drawn down. Oh, you say, death has been there too. A few steps farther and you meet one draped in deep mourning; death again has been taking away the loved one. You go to your home, and there the first thing you see is the black-edged letter waiting for you, telling once more the tale of sorrow, bereavement, and death; and a morning or two hence some one else may take up the newspaper, and there, the last upon the list, “died suddenly,” is your name.
Yes, this world is one vast graveyard, but what a relief it is to turn from it to the living God! I cannot tell you what it is to my heart to know that the One who loves me best can never die. The one I love best here is the one with whom my deepest sorrow is connected, for death may come in and take that one away from me. But I have One to love now who can never die. Ah! But you say He has died. Yes, and He died for me, that is the best of it; that is what wins the heart for Christ. He died for me, and now the heart may flow out to Christ unhinderedly, and never shall its tendrils be rudely broken. You may love Him deeply, tenderly, yea, with your whole heart; your deepest affections may go out to Him, and never shall they be crushed or disappointed, for you will have found One to love who can never die. You who have known sorrow, would you not like to know Him to comfort you in it? You who have known death taking your dearest, would you not like to know Him who is the Resurrection and the Life? You who want an object to live for, would you not like to know Christ? Is your heart empty? He will fill it, for Christ fills to overflowing. There is life for the dead, comfort for the sorrowing, bread for the hungry, everything in Jesus, and an object to last you all your days, One who can never die.
Perhaps you say, “I should like to be a Christian, it is better far to be a Christian, for the world has never really satisfied me yet.” No, and it never will, for the heart is too big to be filled with aught except Christ, but He fills it to overflowing. But you tell me, “Some Christians are not happy.” I will tell you why, they are like Naomi, backsliding ones. They want to have a bit of the world and a bit of Christ; to hold the world with one hand and Christ with the other.
No wonder they are not happy, they are not the right kind of Christians at all; they have too much of Christ to really enjoy the world, and too much of the world to fully enjoy Christ; now, do not they deserve to be miserable for their halfheartedness? I think so. Besides, look at the damage they do; what is the effect of their half-heartedness? Why, by-and-by they will say to some young person who wants to be out-and-out for Christ, “Well, you know, you must not go so far; if you are going to be as decided for Christ as that, you will have to give a great deal up; you had better not take such a stand.”
After this sort speaks Naomi, saying, “Go, return.” “Go back!” I have no words strong enough in condemnation of such behavior to inquiring souls. “Go back” where? Go back to hell? Go back to the lake of fire and brimstone? Go back to Moab and its gods, and to hell at the end? for that is the real meaning of it. And this is the advice of one who knew the living God. Get all you can in the world, and everlasting ruin at the end. Even the world holds Christians, who act in such a way, in contempt. Very deep and profound was the contempt I had for unreal Christians when I was in the world. I respected real Christians, though, alas, I hated them; but I despised half-hearted ones. Oh, beware of in any wise ceding the truth one bit; by so doing you lose everything and you gain nothing.
Yet Naomi’s words seem kind and plausible, “The Lord deal kindly” (vs. 8); “The Lord grant you that ye may find rest” (vs. 9). What mockery! Turn your back on. Him, and look for rest! What might they have answered her? “We had everything, and it has all been swept away by death. Our cup was full, but it has been dashed to the ground, and we are empty and desolate in the world; we want something living and abiding.” Just suited are such souls for God to come in, and fill, and comfort, and satisfy. And they seem in earnest, too, and say, “Surely we will return with thee.” They appear so interested, so engaged about it, like a heart almost decided for Christ. But Naomi says, “Turn again.” Oh, how could she? Turn from God! Turn back to the world; the world that had failed to satisfy them! Naomi was the very picture of some crooked, crotchety, cross-grained people, who have no expectation of other people being saved; it is as much as they know they are saved themselves.
I suspect, too, that Naomi had a bit of Scripture in her mind that day, that no Moabite should enter the congregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation. (See Deut. 23:3-4.)
So now she brings out this—If you go with me, your worldly prospects will all be blighted (vss. 11-13); go back, and the Lord give you something in the world. Worldly prospects all ruined; I think I see Orpah’s face. I cannot stand that, she says; I never thought of that. This brings Orpah to the point, and now, dear reader, comes the point whether you really want Christ or not.
“But,” you say, “will my worldly prospects be blighted?” So it is often. The moment you are out-and-out for Christ, your old companions will slight you and leave you. Do you, therefore, say, It is up-hill work being a Christian? Yes, it is; but look at the top of the hill, look at the end of the path, it is all brightest glory, the fair scene of light, and joy, and blessing with Christ for evermore.
When this point is come to, there is decision; and then comes the line of demarcation. Hitherto, these two had been going on side by side to the same spot; and there may be two souls in one family, perhaps two sisters, whose hearts are moved—both think they would like to be Christians; but now decision is called for. Ah, I am not prepared for that, says one. I had not counted the cost, says Orpah; good-bye, Naomi, good-bye. I shall always feel kindly towards you, and I hope we shall meet again some day; but I cannot go with you at that cost; and she turns her back on God and on blessing. From that moment Ruth goes one way, and Orpah another; the one is decided for God, and the other is decided for the world; and they separate forever, each step now taken more widely sundering them from each other; sad finale to what seemed so hopeful a beginning.
Oh, but you say, the picture is so dark, so dreary. Shall I lose in this world? Very likely. Will my prospects in life be blighted? Very likely. Then it is so dark, I could not be a Christian. And you go back, you choose the world, you reject Christ.
Everything in the world looks fair and bright before you for a time, and you say it is most natural you should cleave to the world and turn away from God; most natural, but what is the end? A little while and the grass is cut down, and tomorrow—tomorrow it is cast into the oven, the solemn end of an unconverted soul. A bright prospect the world has, most surely! No real joy for time, and nothing but real sorrow for eternity. You turn your back on God and blessing, on Christ and His love, and presently you are cast off by God, forsaken by Him, and then you spend your eternity where hope and light and love never, never come, and you choose this, and call it a bright picture, do you? Nay, it is like the rich man in the gospel, who was hurled in one moment from the lap of luxury to the lake of fire! Your path ends in death now, and judgment forever.
Oh, I warn any one who is this moment just balancing the matter. Do you turn back? “I do.” Do you answer really, I do? You choose the world? “Yes.” You turn your back on the truth, then, and back into the world in affections you go? Against Christ? “Yes.” For the world? “Yes.” Back to her people and her gods goes Orpah, and you follow in her steps. Hear what Isaiah says of these gods, “gods that cannot save” (Isa. 45:20). What an awful picture of a soul that turns its back, deliberately, in cold blood, on God and His Son!
One of these two characters is yours. Either, like Orpah, you refuse Christ and you choose the world, or, like Ruth, you say now, I cannot go back; you tell me the road is rough; I care not, it is the end of the road my eye is upon. Ruth is the picture of a soul that says, I will have Jesus, come what may in between. There is something in Jesus that attracts my heart, and Him I must have. But it will be a rough road. I care not, I must have Him. There will be stones in the way. I know it. There are lions in the path. No matter, “I will go!” “Where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” Mark how she goes into details; let the road be ever so rough, the accommodation ever so bare, she has sat down and counted the cost. “Thy people shall be my people,” even though the Lord’s people be a despised people, “And thy God my God,” that is, the end before Ruth is God Himself.
To the heart that wants salvation, that wants eternal life, I say, What is it you covet? It is God Himself. What do you want to possess? It is God you want. In Isa. 45 we hear of gods that cannot save, and then God unfolds what He is, “a just God and a Savior.” How just? Because He will not pass over or make light of sin. How a Savior? He gave His own beloved Son to die on Calvary’s cross, the just for the unjust, to bring us to Himself. And now He is willing to save to the uttermost all that come unto Him through Jesus. “Look unto me and be ye saved,” is His word. If I tell you of my God, what is He? A loving, a gracious God, a saving God, a God who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to die in order that He might spare you. A God who loves you, and who wants to save you.
Well, do you say “Thy God shall be my God”?
My heart delights to hear the words. What a God He is! a just God and a Savior. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved.” Does He say, Look unto Me, and feel saved? No, it is “be ye saved.” If it were feel saved, Satan would whisper, But you do not feel aright. It is “be ye saved.” Are you looking to the Lord? Then you are saved; the moment your heart says, Well, God is for me, He loves me, He bids me look and live; I do look. Then what does He say? “Be ye saved.”
It is a blessed thing when the heart says, Christ is mine, I respond to His grace, to His call; hence forward, I am His. I AM DECIDED FOR CHRIST.
“When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left speaking,” and so can I! If decision for Christ is the word you can say just this moment, my work is done. I trust you are not “a little bit inclined towards” (No, no!), but “steadfastly minded” for Christ.
They come back to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest, and in the next chapter we read of Ruth gleaning until the end of barley harvest, and wheat harvest; what does that mean? She came in for everything. Whenever the heart is decided for Christ, everything is yours. The Lord grant you to have your heart so fixed on Christ, so pledged to Christ from this hour, that you may know you are Christ’s, and Christ is yours, and all that He has is yours too. The God that gives life to the dead, speaks peace to the troubled soul, and comfort to the sorrowing one, gives life and hope and joy to every believer, and will take each such in a little while to be where He is, in scenes of eternal brightness and beauty. Oh! Who would not have such a God? And you must make your choice. Either you must drop this paper godless, or for God. You must decide either against the Lord or for Him. There is not a single person can lay aside this paper undecided. If it is not for Christ, it is against him. “He that is not with me is against me.” There is no middle ground. Is it among the foes, the adversaries of the Lord, your lot is henceforth to be cast, or numbered with His own—able, henceforth, to sing this hymn that my heart loves?
“My heart is fixed, eternal God, Fixed on Thee,
And my immortal choice is made, Christ for me.”