4. The Choice of Elimelechs Sons

The Choice of Elimelech’s Sons

"And [Naomi’s two sons] 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." (Ruth 1:4-5)

Now Elimelech went out in self will disregarding the claims of God upon him; and it was not very long before he died, and when he died his wife was bereft of headship, direction in the home, and the two sons married themselves to daughters of Moab - a thing that God had expressly forbidden in His word (Deuteronomy 7:1-4; Deuteronomy 23:3). It could not have been any plainer God said no-one was to marry anyone from Moab, or from Ammon, or from any of the nations. It was expressly said by God, and yet here are two men, bereft of their father’s guidance, doing something that was contrary to God; and it was not very long before they died, and so this is a very solemn story. A wife loses her husband, two sons lose their father, and death and famine come in- a very bleak picture indeed, and it all can be traced to disobedience.

I was listening to a dear brother ministering a few weeks ago, and he was telling us that a young sister came to him and she said, ’I want some help. I want to marry a young man, he is not a Christian, but I want to marry him’.

’Well’, said the brother, ’do you think that is the right thing to do?’

’Oh’, she said, ’I am praying about it.’

’Well’, he said, ’you are doing the wrong thing, you ought not to be praying about it you ought to be obeying God’s word. God’s word says expressly that you should not be united to someone who is unconverted, because that is an unequal yoke (2 Corinthians 6:14). You are considering doing something that God expressly forbids. What do you want? Do you want God to change His mind? Do you want to pray to Him, until He says to you, ’It is all right for you to marry an unconverted person’, when He says plainly in His word, ’If any Christian is to marry it is to be only in the Lord’’?

Now that is plain enough. This is the very thing that these two sons did not do - they expressly acted in a way that was contrary to the will of God, and it brought sorrow.

Now this is not the only way in which we can disobey, perhaps we tend to stress that a great deal. I think it is very important that young people should know that if they are going to choose a partner, they make sure they choose a partner in the Lord. And in many other ways too we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers who will drag us down in our Christian testimony. We might be very, very happy naturally, but we certainly will not grow spiritually. But then again, we might be disobedient in a thousand ways in our lives, and if we are disobedient we will reap the consequences.