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Consider.
Meaning with roots and the fields of God as much present, they need instruction in the local.
Ruth, Chapter One.
Now came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land.
In a certain manner, 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 the Limelack, the name of his wife Naomi.
The name of his and two sons, Marilyn and Jillian aphrophytes. With Bethel and Judah, they came into the country of Moab and continued there.
In the limelight, 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 Miss Porfa in the name of the other group, and they dwelled there about 10 years.
Melon and Zillion died also, both of them and the woman who was left of her two sons and her husband.
Then she rose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab, and that the Lord had visited his people and 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. Lord, deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead, and with me, Lord grant you, 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 wept.
And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.
And Naomi said, Turn again my daughters, why will you go with me? Are there yet any more Suns in my womb that they may be your husband's? Turn again, my daughters, Go your way. I am too old to have a husband.
If I should say I have hope, if I should have an husband also tonight, and should also bear sons with G Terry for them until they were grown, would you stay for them from having husbands? Nay, my daughters for agree with me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.
And they lifted up their voice and wept again, and Orpha and kissed her mother-in-law. But Ruth clave unto her.
And she said, Behold, my sister-in-law has gone back unto her people, and unto her gods. You turn thou after thy sister-in-law.
And Ruth said, And treat me not to leave thee, or to return from falling after they to whither thou goest I will go. Where thou lodges I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou die will I die.
And there will I be buried, and Lord do so to me, and more also if fought for death part they and me.
When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her. So they too went, until they came to Bethlehem.
They 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. So the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again, emptying. Why then call you me, Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Mobitus, the daughter-in-law with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
00:05:21
It's uh, time setting is important to learn. It's in the middle of the time of the judges.
God had raised up men and they have failed or any stuff.
Kings, and they had failed.
And now there are judges and they are failing. So it's a day of darkness as we are living.
And yes, the thread that runs right through this is the thread that leads right up to Christ.
And we realize that we are the dear young people here who are living in days that we, we, I've never seen before. And they're getting darker and quicker and darker. And we need to clean as Ruth did. So that's what she has determined to see.
Was God's hand, and may the Lord help us to see this, that no matter how dark the day is, if there's purpose or heart, as there was in Ruth, the Lord has a purpose in your life and mine. And here Ruth, as we know, became the ancestor, ancestors of none other but the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So he had a purpose in this story.
The Old Testament is God's picture book, isn't it?
And if we read it, we find that there are many lessons for us to learn and it does bring us to the very present day. Because the Word of God is an ever present truth, isn't it it?
Not have passed anything. It's not something that's anti antiquated. It's ever present for us. So I think it's very beautiful to see these pictures that God has for us in the Old Testament.
Last verse of the chapter before. It gives us a pathetic, doesn't it? The 25th verse of the last chapter before chapter before. In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
That's the kind of a day that we're living in today, a day of self will people just going as they wish. And it tends to have its effect upon us even as believers, uh, that instead of making the word of God our guide, we just do whatever we think is all right. But the word of God should always be our guide. But then in the midst of this situation, God picks out a family. And this is very interesting, uh, this family that went down discouraged by the condition among the people of God.
They went down to mall. The mall lights were descendants of Lot and we know how lot Lot left. Abraham thought the well watered plains and was a person who thought, uh, he would seek an easy path. Perhaps he would try and perform the world because he sat in the gate at the Sodom. But uh, his whole life was a lost life because a person can have a saved soul and a lost life. We're saved only through what the Lord Jesus has done through his glorious work upon the cross of Calvary.
But our lives, if we don't live them for him, can be lost. I say again, I lost life but a saved soul.
And so it's very interesting and there are other families here. And so we can apply this to ourselves when, uh, we're living in difficult days when everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. Do we just follow the crowd or are we exercise what we see for, uh, elimolate? And the, the name of the Elimelech means that God is king. And he should have recognized this, that there was one that a sovereign, right?
Now there is one whom we ought to acknowledge as Lord in our lives where we got discouraged and he thought, oh, there's a family here. I'll just go down into the country of Mullah like Lot did. And, uh, I'll think, uh, a place for my family down there. What a lesson for us brethren. Well, may the Lord help us as we read these details to, uh, make his word our guide. So instead of just following the crowd or getting discouraged, we make this word our God as well we should do.
00:10:13
Very interesting. Uh, the the, the land of Israel.
Is very interesting and as you say.
Gordon.
Every detail has a point in it. Israel, the Dead Sea was 1200 feet below sea level and Jerusalem was, uh, not very high because above that. But there were no rivers in the land, uh, West of Jordan, no rivers at all. Jerusalem was the only capital in the world that has ever been without a river.
Always a river through all the great cities of the world.
What does that mean? Well, it just meant that it was so different that it was totally dependent on rain from heaven.
So is, uh, Egypt, on the other hand, they, they got their sustenance through the floods that came down every year, uh, from the Nile and watered all the land and fertilized it. But Israel was totally dependent on whether and so here.
Various opening of a fan. God had a purpose in this, not to discourage them. And when you and I faced circumstances, they might say, oh, why is the Lord allowing this in my life? Oh, just think of Ruth. Let's start. It was the Lord that he wanted to discourage them. No, he wanted to show them something infinitely better.
And so here in unbelief they go into the very place that they were told not to go to MOA. This man takes his wife and his two boys there, guides them, and they follow. But it was a path downward. But God had a purpose in it of a path upward.
A few years ago I was.
Ministry on this chapter in I believe it was Walla Walla at the conference.
And I mentioned that in the first verse it says when the judges ruled there was famine in the land.
And I made this statement which.
Brother afterwards challenged him.
That whenever judges rule, it causes bad, he says God for the judges there.
Brother did at the meeting and he's correct in that respect. God did raise up judges and uh, I noticed and looking into it a little more.
That it doesn't say so much when the judges rule is in the judges judge a judge. Let me just tell you this in a general way. We can be very good judges. We're we're very active. That being judges. Do we create food for the people of God in doing so? I don't believe so.
I believe that we create family.
And yes, the Lord test through firemen. I agree with that. I believe it. And uh, the famine comes about because of the general unfaithfulness of the people of God.
But the remedy isn't judging, is it?
That doesn't, that doesn't feed the people of God. So I've, uh, rather than leave off that thought, I think I've felt I've appreciated the brother challenging it.
But I still feel that it's umm.
Not what we look for as far as helping the people of God.
What we look for is shepherding them, isn't it? Could we look at it? That's why the Spirit of God will either occupy us with Christ or he'll occupy us with ourselves. And the only reason that he would occupy us with ourselves and our failures is so that we might judge our failure. And so I really believe that the prodigal son, when he went into the far country, he would have eaten the pig's food. And so God brought him to a famine, and the result of that was blessing in his life.
He would return and re arise and return to his father. I suppose the thought of sending food to the prodigal son in the far land, he would have accepted it and he would have appreciated it, but he never would have returned to the father. So I think we have a little bit of this is that God, the Spirit of God acts cause us to judge ourselves. And I believe that that's why a believer can be the happiest person on earth of the most miserable person on earth. Often, umm a believer even is very unhappy and he sees his others that go on in the world, the wicked, and they seem to be having a happy time and untroubled and so on.
00:15:32
And the believer just seems to be mired in unhappiness and it's really the Spirit of God would seek to exercise both the conduct because, umm, the man in the flesh would like to enjoy the things of God when he's going on in a bad pathway.
Interesting to see too the.
Starting off and Brother Gordon has mentioned, the name of the man is my God means my God is King. The name of the woman means my pleasantness.
Well, it's wonderful to realize that you and I have been brought into the family of God and its pleasantness, our excellence. There's nothing to compare with the joy in the Christian life.
So basically these were.
It was a wonderful foundation, but.
They didn't fall in the new. Dear young people, if you just learn these lessons from this book, you'll find pleasantness and you'll find that the Lord is indeed your King and you are. But it's a personal exercise. They were going to experience it and then we to make it very personal and realize that foundationally we are children of God, but God has put us down here.
And test us to see whether we're going to enjoy what we really are in crisis. I think the very place that they were located to and went out from this destructive.
It's Bethlehem, Judah, the House of bread and praise, and I believe that speaks of where we are as we're gathered together.
And what should be in a practical way, but it's the place that God has put established for our bread and for our praise to produce praise. But they went out from that place so well.
I think we've hinted at this the fine and tested.
And famine does come in, but is that any reason to go out from the place of bread and grape? A House of bread and bread stay there. Faith would stay there, wouldn't it?
And God will come in, in fact, not to anticipate if you go down to verse, uh, uh.
Six, the report reaches them that God did commit He had visited his people to give them bread.
See God's faithful, but he tests us with with famine sometimes. And I say to those who are parents, uh, maybe you feel that we're the Lord has gathered you is probably there's just nothing for my family. Don't step out of that path because that's the place where the Lord is going to visit and give prayer.
Just count on him and the exercise is why the founders allowed.
But you notice that when he went out, he did not go to live there permanently, he went there to sojourn.
So Jeremy is, is that a permanent dwelling? No, it's just, I think it comes from the root of the word is just for today, for that day.
Is that what it is, Neil? It comes from the connected with the French and Ajua. Yeah. Just for today, right. Day or two, just stay there. And, uh, often we do that because the enemy is clever with us. It gets us to, to, uh, think that we're going to. We're not taking a permanent deviation. This is just a little time for a couple of days, just until the kids get fed, you know, and what happens.
Well, if you see the immersed UH-2, the end of the verse, it says he continued there.
See, the enemy has gotten them out of the path and now he continues there and how long? It's a long drive, a long time and, uh.
00:20:11
You and I have a profession that the Lord is our King. If we step out of the path, we lose that perfection. Let me let it die. He died. And they only have to say bitterness, bitterness.
But stay where the Lord has the House of bread and praise.
Now, is that arrogant to say that? I hope not. Better. I hope it's faithfully set aside.
We're nothing. So I can look at the collective side of things. And Christianity is known not by what it looks for, but what it brings. And so if there was no bread there.
What was a limit like doing about it? Scripture says, let a man examine himself and I may look around in the assembly and say, well, there's no bread there. But what I'm what is my responsibility? What is my responsibility as a brother or sister? Even in the home, if you say to my mind, there's nothing there. My parents don't seem to value these things.
What is my responsibility and so as we look to that we've taken up this responsibility in the in the place where he was that God would have come in. Remember a friend asked me and passed his friend actually asked me. He said that the minister came and wanted him to sign a paper on his high. And so I've never I've tried to understand ties a little bit. And so I got before the Lord about it and I thought the Bible dictionary and I realized there were three times according to the Bible dictionary there was a tie that was to be kept.
Uh, was to be set aside to go up to Jerusalem for themselves and for the Levites and the strangers. A little bit like we set aside some money to come to a conference. There was a tithe.
That was for the Levites. And then there was a tide that they were to keep at home so that they could receive the stranger and the Levite in their own home. And so if he had felt his own responsibility and his fears of responsibility, I believe, to provide bread for his own, that he wouldn't have gone off looking for something. And often we we go looking for something rather than speaking before the Lord to bring something, we get into trouble.
I see two in that word, that last word of the.
Second verse continued.
That is in the last.
Six or seven years, the 11Th of our table.
Some of them seem to be satisfied to continue on. To me, it's very, very sad. Why is that?
Well, I do believe that discernment is lost when we are away from the presence of the Lord. And so they continued there. And let it be a warning to us all that if we.
Do make those?
Mistake. We're losing the mind of the Lord. I think it's because as a revelation 2 Says, they the Lord looked on Ephesus and he said, I know thy works. I know this, I know that.
Nevertheless, I have someone against it because the left eye first love. Well, I believe that the the giving up of affection to Christ precedes the loss of our discernment, and I believe that this is what was here. They were satisfied to stay there, but the Lord applied more pressure. He had a purpose of of blessing and a positive blessing, but it was they didn't learn it at the beginning.
Anticipated, uh, anticipating a bit. 1 voice husband is taken away. Did she say we're in the wrong place? No, she didn't. And the boys marry into the world mold like one dies. No, they're not getting the sensitive message from the Lord or how sensitive we need to be to get these messages from the Lord.
To mention what our brother said about the judges, I think we should notice in the second chapter of the Judges. What's the worst there? That I believe is important.
Judges 2 verse 16. Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, the Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them, and yet they would not hearken unto the judges. But I do believe that self judgment is very necessary. And any call that brings us back to self judgment, that was really what the work of the judges was. And because they hadn't hearkened under the judges, they were doing their own will. Says Every man did what was right in his own eyes.
00:25:19
And so the proof of it was instead of practicing self judgment, little quotation from another Self judgment is the inseparable condition of work, a condition of, of a work of a walk in communion with God. And so we find that it tells us in the book of, uh, Corinthians, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. So we believe that self judgment is necessary. Now the spirit in which it does very important.
And if we do it in the right spirit, it can be a real blessing. But rather than we do need self judgment. And I think all of us recognize there are things in our lives that need to be brought under the, uh, authority and light of God's word and that we would see those things. I think it drives them. But I take it that they hadn't hearkened to the judges. They were all doing what was right in their own eyes. And now the story comes in and God singles out this particular family.
And shows us the result of a lack of self judgment.
The other garden, I think that when you see why people leave and why they left, is that you go to a place where I where I exercise nobody's conscious and nobody exercises mine. And that really explains, I believe, what Brother Barry says. People say, well, they're such a relief and I've found such peace and so on because there's nobody to exercise my conscience and I don't exercise anybody's conscience. And therefore poverty comes in and then the ruin as a result of that, you just see the terrible.
Practical ruin, as we see here in the death of these ones comes into the family and those of us yes, you get a little bit older, you start to see what has happened. And so people think of this place. They think of the place being critical and so on. And you do desire that the truth be brought before and loving and a faithful way. But we try to escape that by getting away where nobody is going to touch my conscience. But it is the word continue to Timothy was continue thou. And that's why I made the comment about the collective side. It says let a man examine himself and so let him eat. And so we have to be.
Exercise, not to just look around, but really to see in the circumstances, is what is the Lord saying to me and them.
Because it doesn't begin a little or doesn't begin with big things. It begins with little things, just a little thing. Well, what's wrong with this and what's wrong with that, you know? And then more and more of the departure comes in. And that's, I really believe that's what we need to see. One other thing is too, is that, uh, unbelief always looks at the Lord through circumstances.
I believe that as they looked at their circumstances here and they're really saying the Lord is not here. Well, he was there. He was there, but there was no, uh, a lot of our problems stems from two things, ignorance of himself and of His word and unbelief.
And desiring to do it on. I want to do the train itself Will. Mm-hmm.
And so it's characterized the pathway of division and walking away. And we're, this is not really brought up here, but is characterized by heresy and heresy means to choose. And so now instead of the truth judging me and the whole truth of God, I start to get taken up with issues. And so you'll often find that those that go off, they, they stand very firmly for certain truth and we get taken up with issues, but rather being in the place for the truth judges me and exposes my conscience is that I get taken up with issues and so on.
And rather really than being in the Lord's presence and really being fed and feeding the people of God, but his death is a practical result of it.
Regarding famine, umm.
Some years ago, a brother called my attention to John 21.
And verse, uh.
John 21.
And verse 5.
And the brother made this remark, and I think he's right, he said. One of the most searching questions.
Were the brothers of any local assembly.
In this question of the word raises here Is there anything to eat? Children, is there anything to eat?
00:30:08
Because he holds us responsible to feed the Lord's people. This is a searching question. This brother was commenting that it sometimes grieved him that a brother who did have something to give always felt that immediately the Lord wanted him to go 1000 miles away to administer the Word. But he said the main responsibility is.
The speed of local assembly and it's a searching question. The Lord came and said to them, do you have anything here to eat? Is there any meat? That's what that means. Is there anything here to eat? What is their answer? No.
No. And I just, I've let that scripture speak to me. I trust you all well.
Little place where the Lord is placed is wherever it might be.
If we have anything to give, have we been willing to give out what the Lord has given? And they'll be giving food and the Lord's people?
There's a lot of hungers and I hear about it sometimes.
We're done as we have in the 21St verse. When they only came back. What did she say? I went out hungry. No, I went out of the pool and the Lord had brought me home again, empty. There was plenty there, but she wasn't there in communion with the Lord. She wasn't there in self judgment. So she missed all the blessing that was actually there for her if she was only ready to receive it. And it's not true with us. Very often we get occupied with difficulties.
We, uh, we need to, the need to be judged judges, uh, and evil has to be judged. We have to judge ourselves constantly. But I want a full, that was the House of bread. That was the place of blessing for her. And she found it out. And she didn't say, well, I got something in. She said the Lord, not me. She didn't say I came back, but the Lord had brought me home empty. But she acknowledged the Lord's hand in the whole thing.
Really restored. It's a lovely contrast in the two words.
That we saw.
Continued. They continued there, but then there's a lovely word.
In the in the sixth verse that she might return. How beautiful that word is. What is it requiring humbleness, willingness to go down, and then the Lord returns. At least it turns us back in our thinking.
We need to pray for those dear ones, dear ones that have gone away from us.
And so it's just so sad that little word returned.
Just to humble ourselves and there would be that restoration. So immediately the work starts, but she fails. The mother fails. She to me is a little picture of a Christian who says, yes, I became a Christian, but there wasn't much to it. So I'm giving up. Well, that's what the message that Naomi really was saying is that two daughters in law, you stay here.
What is she saying this for staying here?
She should have known better. So our life effects others very much, whether we're in the enjoyment of Christ or not.
That's our greatest antidote against discouragement and departure return.
Is it true that as to our eternal salvation?
We have to be turned around. I think it was so often we're on a certain course, certain path, We need to be turned around. And so as we are turned around and we get and now we can say, well, we know the Lord Jesus as our savior. Does that mean we're always going in the right path? Not always our our own thoughts come in. So even as a believer, we have to be turned around.
Because the natural vent of our hearts is to go in a certain course. We leave that which God has provided for us. And so we need to be reminded over and over again, Return them, come back. You need to come back. You're going in the wrong direction. And I believe we see that here, don't we?
00:35:14
On the 22nd of blue, the two asked Where will thou that we prepare in the Passover? The Lord said going to the city didn't tell him what street he'll meet a man bearing a pitcher of water. They didn't catch up to the man, they met him and they had to turn. They had to repent, they had to return. Re is to go on the opposite.
Direction.
Pantus from the Latin word to think. They had to chapter change their thinking. This is so important for us to get our thinking from the lower. It means returning.
A couple of years ago I was in the conferencing Lima, Peru.
And there was a dear lady who was a cousin of Brother Valderrama's.
And I noticed she wasn't there and I asked somebody about it. I said, well, she's no longer walking with the assembly.
And uh.
Later in the during the conference, I saw her always. I'm glad to see you.
I said I understand you're not going on anymore with the assembly here. Well, she says. There wasn't much food for my children, and I really wanted my children to get something.
And she said it wasn't really much light beer in this area.
We've got music there and where I'm going and.
We got to think a little bit in the city, which is why you hear that in the conference. I was so hungry I had to come back.
So while she.
Left for her children, she said. I think she felt the poverty of where she was. She wasn't getting fed.
And she had come to the conference because her soul was under it.
I'm thinking of a dear Apostle John in the Book of Revelation.
Uh, just looking at that.
The uh.
Uh.
In chapter one.
The uh.
He could say in verse 10, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet.
But something had to happen there. I I say it happened because it did. And that notice what he says. Say I am Alpha and Omega, the 1St and the last. What thou seest right? What thou seest? Write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Tyra, Stardust, Philadelphia, Laodicea verse 12. And I turn to see the voice.
State when he turned, he got a marvelous revelation, didn't he? The voice had spoken to him. God speaks to us many times, but are we turning around? He's behind the the voice is there What we're going in the wrong direction? I don't say John was going in the wrong direction, but at least we see the picture there that when John turned, it says to see the voice, uh, being turned. I saw seven of golden canisters.
What a revelation John saw by being turned around, and we too, as believers.
True believers, if we only get turned around once in a while, we get going in the wrong directions. We listen to the wrong voices, we hear the wrong things. God wants to turn us around. He has something very precious for us to say.
Good instruction, I believe, for us.
And Naomi says to her two daughters.
Go return. Well, that's the wrong return.
Return she was in a poor state of solar cell phone. I believe this is an important warning to us all. What is our life saying to others? What is our life saying? She is, she says and goes so far as to say the Lord deal kindly with you.
00:40:05
How could she say such a thing?
Go back. Well, what's our life saying to other believers?
Our life pointing on to Christ.
So.
That year, and as we have dealt with the dead and with me, we were just thinking about ourselves.
But she was missing the mind of the Lord. But the girls now are entering the picture. And here is where the testing is switching out to the girls. What are they going to do? And it's so full of instruction, I believe, to see the difference between the two girls.
Say both here, the mother-in-law saying they'll return the Lord, uh, deal kindly with you. Ninth verse. If he goes farther, the Lord grant you that he may find rest. Well, when we get away from the Lord's table, we can find things that will satisfy.
And will Satis will satisfy our condition truly.
1211 and truly, if they've been mindful of that world from once they came out, they had had opportunity to return and so there were things that were convincing, but it wasn't right. Excuse me, go ahead. That brings to mind chapter one. We often think people often say, well, I've got a service for the Lord in this place and so I stay in the wrong place. But she was no service or used to the Lord, but an actual positive hindrance to her daughter. And so we have the principle in Scripture and in connection with judgment too.
Isaiah 1 and 16.
You want us to make you clean, Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Well, what was she doing? She was doing the exact opposite. She wasn't believing the prep. She was sending her back to a very place of oppression. Moab for the flesh was after. And so we see this similar principle in Timothy, Second Timothy.
In second Timothy, uh 221, speaking about vessels to dishonor, Moab was a place to dishonor, it was just the ACT less active. But he said, if a man that's individual, therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.
Well, the place of service for the Lord's people is where the Lord is. And, uh, she was of no help to her daughters in laws there in that in the wrong place. As a matter of fact, she would have sent them back to there. Yeah.
Very solemn that you actually it says, uh, inverse, umm.
I broke. I've been struck by this, he says in verse.
UH-15 to prove your sister-in-law is going back to her people and to her gods. Go ahead after your sister. How could you do that?
How could you send route back to those false gods? Uh, but when we get away from the Lord in a way like this, there's nothing we can't do.
Determine yourself. The determinism, the awfulness of it doesn't seem to impress her at all. And, uh, even you know the words you're talking. Your sister is going back to her sister gonna come back to her 'cause it returns out and with you go back to.
And what a test that was for Ruth. But how wonderfully she comes through that these verses have run. Uh.
Out, out, uh, there are precious to our goals. The words that root others here, often they're using a winning ceremony and they're very touchy. People say it as well. Not much love is showing. What? All I hear was Naomi. What is she doing in the ninth verse?
Says. Then she kissed them. I can't say.
She wasn't showing our affection, but it was in the wrong direction.
She was kissing them goodbye because they were wanting to go back.
00:45:02
And they all went. They all lift up their voice and wept. They were affected by this, but how beautiful to see.
And that's what happened. The communities are gone. I think it was something 10 years ago. It's a bad thing when we have a site to live when we're not supposed to check. I think the bad thing when we have advice to give when we're not supposed to give it out. And we never will if we're not in community before. Not going to have the right side.
I noticed something short times, I think it is Naomi thought. Each time she uses the large name, each time she uses the large name and uh, in an almost strong sense. But each time it's negative advice. Each time she doesn't say anything really positive.
And you'll notice that growth is not influenced by anything that Naomi said, even though Naomi is using the last name.
What speed is influenced by is is Naomi's basic action.
She's saying my Lord is listening to people and she's showing evidence she's going to go back because that's the right place and that's what Influence wrote.
They are the two important words in verse 18 that Fast reminded.
Naomi, in a sense, steadfastly minded in a heart because she made-up her mind to go back. But she doesn't say anything positive. Not one word here is positive. It would encourage them with their voice.
But there must have been something in the way she acted or influenced growth.
The end of the 13th 1St and it shows how low down there she has something, she says said uh.
The hand of the Lord is gone out against me.
What ceramic is lost?
Oh the the hand of the Lord was just wanting to be laid on her to bless her.
But all the arguments.
All these were strong and apparently on the surface, good. You dear young people, you may hear things that sounds so convincing as to other paths and so on that are easier to get along, and that was not from God.
That's it was a test for.
Other than, and that's just been pointed out, two girls, they hear exactly the same thing.
And they both kissed their mother-in-law in return.
And Orpro like the two C's on the cross, one down and never hear her again. Into the darkness.
But Ruth instead of plays.
To her mother-in-law, Uh, so we need brothers, please do Christ.
Just made some information with returning to our God and say, well, we're not idolaters. Your brother made a helpful comment to me. He said that idolatry was the Judaism with divisions and sectarianism is to Christianity. That seems like a strong statement. But he died that he might gather together and won the children of God that are scattered abroad. It's not a light matter to say, Oh my soul salvation is secure, but I'm not concerned about.
Being gathered together where the Lord is in the midst.
That I can go where I want because an idolatry man took an attribute of God and he made an idol of it and he worshipped it. That was what idolatry was. And so you even see attributes of God represented by various a animals in the Scripture. But idolatry was that I took up a man takes a particular attribute of God and he worships that. And that was the beginning of idolatry. Now it's of course gone farther and farther off, but it's just all foreign to God. And division is man takes a particular part of the truth.
And he forms a a group around that particular part of the truth. And the ironic part is that man rarely is clear on the particular truth that he thinks he's identified himself with. If a group identifies himself with a particular truth, that usually they're wrong about the very truth which is the foundation of their group, often notice that, but it's the same as idolatry. And so man if man's choosing rather than God's choosing.
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Got a God blood emergency? Sometimes. A lot of the time is man pride that hurts them more than anything else. And God will humble you out of his love and mercy. If you do not want to obey, He will almost and then you will be exalted in His way. And I think a lot of times that we just take everything for granted. We do not appreciate what God has for us until we are really brought down.
To a level where we are along and then.
We turn to God and pray, you know, and maybe we go through a lot of sorrow before we reach that. I myself have been in it. I thank God for loving this mercy.
I will continue to pray for all of us because the world is lost and that's not up the end. She says the old guy's sister-in-law is gone back. What's bad words until her people and until her God and then she says return thou after thy sister-in-law.
What's the object of our life?
What is the person of the Lord Jesus the object of our life? Here she was pointing to a woman who to another person return after by assistant Detective bitter of a difference between the two girls.
So here she's pleading with Ruth. But how beautiful? 16th version.
And treatment of Don't keep on talking the way you are.
Don't send treatment to go by.
To lead the lecture of crisis.
I sometimes think that we don't agree how far one gets away and is dull, uh, when they get into a wrong path and how many marks of that are on the person.
So when she comes back, they say, is this Naomi? There's something that makes them think of Naomi, but they're they're just perplexed.
And so she says, don't call me down.
But you know, the whole city was moved about her, and that's what touches my heart.
11 Brethren, if someone makes the move back, do you know how hard that is to do it?
Are we moved by that?
Just to think that someone's making a move back and we're gonna see things that aren't good and we're gonna see things that that, uh, are the marks that have been.
But are we rejoicing and seeking to help that one? I often think how hard it must be for a person who has left, uh, the assembly.
To walk in the door the first time.
How hard it must be for them? Do we make it easy for them? I don't mean we should make light of departure from from the truth or or anything. I'm not talking about that.
But do we make it easy for the person to come back, make them understand that they're loved and, uh, that we're glad to see them come back?
She she says don't, don't call me. She still isn't right in her soul it.
Still isn't right there so and you're gonna have to be patient for a while with such a one.
I've seen a few cases like that and it's such a joy to see the person walk in. Or do you sit there and all of us and stay?
Look at this, look at that, that they brought back with them. Well, I don't think we should be happy about what they bring back. The trappings of Low Ave. and put it that way that are brought back. I don't think you ought to be happy about it. I think we ought to be happy that the Lord is looking back. They're on the path and to seek help with the Lord to encourage us.
And, uh, she can't testify wrongly about the Lord, I'm sure she says, uh.
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Yet it's true in a sense when she says at the end of the word they went out against her. But I believe the real thing was that the end of the word had gone out in favor of her.
And broader to that point when he says the Lord has brought me low.
That's true. The Lord had brother-in-law.
And we ought to recognize that.
And the hands of the Almighty as the British.
We saw 119 visit where Davidson before I was afflicted. I went to strike, but in mercy he afflicted me.
Do we recognize that?
And do we encourage in our brethren?
Or do we, let me put it this way, do we? Are we moved when the Lord brings one back away? Things that we sometimes don't, we make it hard for a person. I'm just speaking with my own exercise. I think we make it hard because we're interested in establishing that we were right and we were, and that they were wrong. You don't have to rub their noses in it, so to speak, do we? The Lord will take care of that.
The Lord will take care of that. I'm sorry.
Well, I'd say the 16th verse shows how the Lord is looking down on this whole steam and he put in the heart and in the mind of Ruth strong statement, deafness positive from the mind of God. So he makes I don't know how many it is one is first one.
Uh, and treatment not to uh, lead the OR to return from following after the. Now here for whither thou goest I will go.
Strong statements wherever you go. I'm going, yeah, that's a whole heart of devotion to Christ. And the second one.
I will, uh, where thou largest, I will lodge third, Thy people shall be my people. Who gets more personal having to do with the people around, and it's getting higher all the time. And the next one, and thy God, my God, where thou die, will I die. And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me.
And more also is off, but yet partly and maybe I think it's so beautiful to see the the firmness now from the Lord and when we desire first move for the Lord is right in their foot to encourage us and give us this earth.
I was just thinking here, this spoke to me that.
Naomi, she really didn't want those two girls to come back with her. And I was just thinking those girls were not Jews, they were Moabites. And she would have to take them back to Jerusalem and she would have to own that she had made a mistake in leaving the place and and bringing back. And if that it speaks to me.
Am I scared to have to own that I have done wrong? Would that be one of the reasons why she didn't want them to come back?
We don't want to.
We don't want to own that. We've made a mistake. You know, it's OK for her to go back, but not to bring in the two girls.
Knows how far away we can get.
There are several spiritual answers for this question. Why?
Lord, take three men, these three women.
Other men are certainly more responsible as leaders, and so the Lord dealt with them and He dealt with Ruth too, but I mean with Naomi too. But Naomi was humbled by it all and got the blessing from it. There is such a thing as the government of God, as we have in First Corinthians 11. So this caused many or we can strictly among you and Wendy, please. And so those who also been leaders.
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At places of responsibility upon the brothers.
Particularly because it puts them in the place of leadership. It shows that sisters certainly, and we see more to vote than us in Rose and more devotedness than Naomi after this than uh, there had been even in men before. And I'm not saying anything to put down any sisters. Certainly they're devoted, uh, often expels Adam brothers, but it doesn't take away from the responsibility of a man.
They were gone 10 years. We should speak of responsibility too, wouldn't it? I think that brothers often blame their wives for things and, uh, they are in the responsible place. Adam Blaine D blamed the Lord and he was responsible. And so there had to be the death of that.
As a reward to all your sisters here.
To your life to be a A.
An example to your daughters, so often the girls following the life of their mother. But it's so beautiful to see that everyone after Israel divided.
All the kings of Judah that went on faithfully for the Lord, the mother's name is mentioned.
Mother's name as mentioned, never once the things that were, uh had turned away from God. Their mothers aren't connected, but how?
Encouraging it is for you to show by not teach your daughters, but show your daughters in the past to walk in.
I've wondered.
So the very if there wasn't something in underneath all the rubbish of the failure of Naomi, there wasn't something that.
Ruth, discern that uh.
Perhaps none of us would have discerned. And Naomi, as that judge said, she's got something. She's got something and I want it. I don't say that to minimize her failure and leaving.
The Lord knows that that's not to be minimized in any way.
Underneath all the rubbish of the trapping of the Moab that were on there, the failure of having gone down there.
It was something that attracted her heart and I believe it was the Spirit of God. Of course it did it. I remember wondering in my youth because I remember reading that I said even the 10th generation was not to come into the congregation.
Puzzle How could they only come into the country?
And I remember reading a reminder, Mr. Kelly, that said sovereign, great sovereign grace. That's where I any of them, Larry.
God's sovereign grace and I just feel that perhaps there was something under all the rubbish.
Of, uh, the Trapezi that might have been honored something said she's got something.
Probably, I think it's 28. There's a depart from iniquity. Understand everything.
So Ruth makes the first move of three women and she gains discernment and perfect apartment. Nothing is going to stop her.
Circumstances mean nothing.
Now you can see that she uh, I just went back to verse 7, wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was.
And her two daughters in law with her and they went on the way to return under the land of Judah. She, uh, she was going in the right direction there. And Ruth, uh, noted this. And it's interesting as it's been said that she had some discernment there to see, well, she's going back to Judith and wherever she goes, that's where I want to go. Keep going back. I wonder if she didn't keep something there or some discernment that she had.