05.01. Ruth 1

Ruth 1:1-22 The book of Ruth, has ever been accounted a literary gem, and of purest water. In this it is only like many other portions of the grand old book we call the Bible. The great Benjamin Franklin, though not a professing Christian, recognised this literary excellence of the Holy Scriptures. It is related that when representing the new-born Republic at the French capital, he was, indignant at hearing learned and polished men there ridiculing the Bible, and expressing surprise that any one of proper and cultivated taste should ever spend time reading it. He one day announced to them that he had in his possession, a copy of a very ancient manuscript, and invited them to his apartments on a certain evening to hear this treasure read. At the time appointed his literary friends were all present, and he had an accomplished elocutionist read to them his copy of the manuscript. They were loud in their praise of it, and the most critical of them pronounced it to be superior to anything they had ever read or listened to, and asked if they might have copies of it. Imagine their astonishment when the ingenious Yankee informed them, with a twinkle in his eye, that they had been listening to one of the sixty-six books of that collection called the Bible and for which they had shown such contempt. It was our book of Ruth, with the name of God omitted, and a few other very slight alterations so that the infidel Frenchmen might not suspect that it was the Bible that was being read to them. This is the book I wish to spend a few evenings over with you. There is a vast deal more than its literary merit that gives it value in our estimation. Being inspired of God, like all Scripture, it is “profitable for doctrine (or teaching), for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16) and very much more. I suppose, to view the book in its typical character, we should see in it the chequered history of God’s people Israel, past, present, and future — for prophecy is only history in advance. This would be its primary interpretation as a type (for I do not think you have the Church typified at all in Ruth). But one great beauty of Scripture is what may be called its extreme flexibility of application; so, without attempting to interpret it, I wish to apply this lovely Judean tale to the individual soul throughout these addresses.

Names are very often in themselves illustrative. They are remarkably so here. Elimelech means, “My God, is King.” This is a name of lofty dignity. Naomi signifies “pleasantness.” The combination reminds us of what is true of every saint of God when in a right or normal state of soul. Their Saviour-God, is the mighty “King of the nations” of the earth, and supreme Lord and Ruler of the universe. What dignity this gives to the Christian, and how it elevates him above the strivings of the potsherds of the earth in their ambitious aims of whatever nature. Then there is “the joy of the Lord” and His known salvation — the “pleasantness.” They enjoy “the blessing of the Lord that makes rich and adds no sorrow to there.” The happy believer has every reason to rejoice, and he is the only person in the world who has any real or good reason for being happy. He “joys in God,” the God of his salvation, and is even commanded to “rejoice in the Lord always.” He proves by blessed experience that wisdom’s ways are “ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” This couple dwelt in Bethlehem-Judah. Bethlehem means “house of bread,” and Judah is “Praise.” A Christian in communion with God enjoys a continual feast. Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures, is made the food of their souls. There is no sighing, “My leanness! my leanness!” The husks, sought after and fed upon by so many, will be eschewed by him, for “the full soul loathes a honey-comb” (Proverbs 27:7). Nature’s sweetest things will lose their charm. “As the living Father,” Christ says, “has sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6:57). Then there is “praise.” The soul feeding on Christ is a praiseful soul. They “in everything give thanks” and their praises are mingled with those of their brethren in the assembly of the saints. Peter speaks of the dual character of the Christian priesthood. It is both “holy” and “royal.” We offer up the “spiritual sacrifice” of praise to God continually. This is as “holy” priests — it is Godward. Then there is service and testimony towards those around us. We “show forth the praises” of our God and Saviour. This we do as “royal” priests — it is manward. See 1 Peter 2:1-25. And then, they were “Ephrathites.” Ephratah means “fruitful.” A Christian with his soul well fed and full of joyful praise is sure to be fruitful in his life. His testimony will be blessed, and his work for God owned. He will not be a vain talker, or a useless cumberer, like the potatoes of the fable, all tops and no fruit at the bottom. He will not live unto himself but unto Christ who died for him and rose again. There will be seen in his life the fruit of the ungrieved Spirit — “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.” So Elimelech (my God is King) and Naomi (pleasantness), Ephrathites (fruitful), dwell in Bethlehem (house of bread) Judah (praise). Happy combination! “What’s in a name?” men ask. Everything often, we reply, when it is in Scripture. They are worth more as evidences of the inspiration of Scripture than all of Egypt’s or Babylon’s monuments, bricks, and tablets put together, though we do not by any means despise the value of these latter.

Well, there they dwelt till the famine came; and then they went down to the country of Moab. They begin to picture the course of the backslider now. It is the self-starved soul, always, that backslides. A neglected Bible means a withered soul. It is the famine of hearing or reading the word of God that leads souls to Moab. And what condition of soul does Moab signify. This family did not go either to Egypt or Babylon, take note. Egypt typifies the world, out-and-out; and Israel, once delivered, could never again be captives there. They went to Egypt in the days of Jeremiah, but it was of their own accord. They were voluntary sojourners there. “I will carry you away beyond Babylon,” was God’s sentence upon the nation for their idolatry. They were captives in Babylon, but never again in Egypt after their wonderful deliverance and passage through the Red Sea. Now Christ died that He might deliver the Christian from “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:1-24), and the word of God assures him that he can never “be condemned with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:1-34). He is not of it, but given to Jesus out of the world. He may, and alas! sometimes does, go back to the world for a time, but he never can be of it again, after his conversion. He has been redeemed by Christ and is “free indeed,” and can never again be Satan’s slave. Babylon is the religious world-profession, where so many of the Lord’s own are in captivity today, like Israel of old. Egypt’s final end is blessing, as Isaiah tells us (Isaiah 19:22-24).

Babylon’s end is utter destruction as we know from the same prophecy (Isaiah 14:22-23). This poor world will, one day, when Jesus reigns, be blessed and its curse removed; but spiritual Babylon, earth’s great corruptress, is beyond all healing. “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all” (Revelation 18:21). God’s call to all His own in Babylon is, “Come out of her, My people.” But Moab, is neither Babylon nor Egypt. We have what Moab suggests in Jeremiah 48:11; “Moab has been at case from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” This is Moab. It is not the Christian turning back to this world’s husks, or joining affinity to a pleasure-loving and lifeless mass of profession, but “at ease” and “settled on his lees.” He is not profiting by the disciplinary dealings of God, so is not “emptied from vessel to vessel.” There is no purging of the branch, for it has, for the time being, become fruitless (John 15:1-27). His conscience has ceased to be exercised “his taste remained in him and his scent is not changed.” The old fleshly appetites are still strong within him from being indulged, and his scent, or discernment, has become dulled. It is just a Christian leading perhaps an outwardly respectable life, but out of communion with God. He may even maintain a position of separation, but it is that separation of a Pharisee who says, “Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou.” Growth in grace has ceased, and for all the use he is, either in the Church or in the world, he might just as well die and go to heaven and be out of the way. I have met them, settled on their lees, like a waterlogged vessel stranded on a mud bank. If they go to meeting at all, it is only on rare occasions when the whim takes them, or their favourite preacher or teacher comes along. They are at ease, alas! in a world where Jesus, God’s untiring Servant said, “My Father works hitherto, and I work.” They will sometimes tell you how once they did work for God, visiting the sick on Sunday afternoons, distributing tracts or teaching in the Sunday-school, but they never saw any fruit, or somebody criticised their methods, or they had got to see things differently, and now suspected the efforts put forth by others as being “fleshly zeal.” They conceitedly compare themselves to Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet, and coldly look upon those who seek to really work for God and souls, as being Marthas who need reproving rather than encouragement. They are very fond of a text (which they little understand) reading, “Their strength is to sit still.” Their scent, too, is defective. Scent, in Scripture, is discernment: and a soul away from God has none. He no longer has any capacity to “try the things which differ,” or power to “try the spirits,” and so falls an easy prey to any new form of false doctrine that may be brought into his neighbourhood, or spring up in the Church of God. His judgment is worthless, so he is useless when questions of discipline arise in the assembly (if he has not already taken himself away). Under the Levitical law no priest could officiate who had a flat nose.” There would be the impaired scent, defective discernment. In contrast with the flat-nosed disqualified priest, the bride of the Canticles is described by her Beloved as having a nose “as the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus” (S. of Song of Solomon 7:4). It was prominent, denoting keen spiritual discernment. The “tower” (watch-tower) would speak of vigilance. It “looked toward Damascus.” Damascus was the city where dwelt Israel’s enemy, the Syrians; and the Christian should ever be on the alert for those spiritual enemies who invade the land of our possession, and spoil, or bring in bondage, the soul, and destroy our testimony for Christ. But the soul pictured by the dual type of Elimelech and Naomi in Moab, has no discernment, and very naturally falls a prey to “imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ.” But “the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways,” and these wanderers from the land of promise are made to feel the rod of chastisement. Elimelech dies and Naomi is left a widow — the standing Scripture type of desolation. The two sons, dragged down to Moab with their parents, marry Moabitish women and Jehovah slays them according to His word (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). If Christian parents depart from God in heart, the effect upon their children is disastrous. We never fall but we drag down others with us. Mahlon means “sick,” and Chilion is “pining,” like the weak, sickly Christianity of children (when converted at all) whose parents have lost the vigour of their spiritual youth, or left their “first love.” So Naomi is left childless and a widow in a stranger’s land, with two other widows, not to share, but to add to, her sorrows. It is a solemn, thing, I tell you, to drift away from God; and some day the rod of discipline most surely must descend. Unequal yokes, too, bring their just reward, as poor Mahlon and Chilion found to their destruction. Worldly fathers and mothers, take warning! You may make good matches, so called, for your converted children, but God will speak in judgment to both you and them if you link them up with unbelievers. I will relate an incident. At N — I was told of a young Christian girl there to whom an ungodly young man paid attention. The mother, instead of discouraging it, helped it on. The girl was willing, and engaged herself to this unbelieving Christ-rejecter, who dragged her out to all kinds of parties and worldly amusements. Both mother and daughter should have known better, for they were both in the fellowship of Christians walking in separation from the world, and where the truth was clearly taught. This poor young Christian girl soon sickened and died. On her death-bed she confessed to all that her departure from God was the cause of her being taken away. “And you, Mother,” she said, “are to blame for this, for you should have stopped me, and shown me my sin.” So she died for her transgression.

I could add testimony to testimony, and the half was never told. God says, “Them that honour Me I will honour, and them that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.” And He will make all His saints to know that He is as good as His word.

Sometimes a whole assembly will allow itself to drift into a state of spiritual famine, and then the weaker ones drop out. This would be like this quartet of Ephrathites going to Moab. For I have sometimes thought that while Elimelech and Naomi represented what Christians should be, their sons might illustrate the state of soul to which the famine had brought them sick and pining. Faith declines and the soul seeks relief in Moab, throws up its responsibilities, and begins a course of spiritual loafing, as we might say. But the family of Elimelech found a hundred-fold more trouble in Moab than they would have found in Bethlehem-judah, even with its bitter hunger. It is as the prophet says, “As if a man should flee from a lion and a bear met him; or went into the house, and eaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him” (Amos 5:19). I know of some brethren who, when things got low and trouble came into the assembly, removed to a distant city to save themselves exercise and conflict, as they thought. But there they only found worse troubles, and were glad to get back and face the difficulties. And then God commenced to revive them, and, in two weeks’ meetings with them, I had the joy of seeing nearly thirty converted, and baptised twenty-one in one night in the sea. And the assembly was increased to double its former size. It was God visiting His people in giving them bread, just as in our story.

There is at last, after more than ten years, a plentiful harvest in Bethlehem, and Naomi hears of it. “Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab.” “Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was.” She was like the starving prodigal, who, when he thought of the “bread enough and to spare” in his father’s house, said, “I will arise and go to my father.”

Naomi came out of “the place where she was.” She, with the others, came to sojourn in the land of Moab, but the end of Ruth 1:2, (margin) says they “were there” — settled, stuck fast, so to speak. But Naomi rises up out of the place of her backslidings and sorrow to return to the land of Judah. It is the beginning of barley harvest when she reaches Bethlehem, and they say, as they behold the long- lost wanderer, “Is this Naomi?” And she, poor woman, says, “Call me not Naomi call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me … why then call ye me Naomi seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” Ah yes, she had reaped the bitter fruit of her unbelief and departure from God and His people. It is ever thus with the backslider. Poor sightless Samson grinds in the prison-house, and makes sport for the Philistines, bound in fetters of brass. David tells us what he suffered for his sin, in the thirty-second psalm. He says, “My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” He says, too, in Psalms 51:1-19, “My sin is ever before me.” And again he speaks of the bones which God had broken. “Restore unto me,” he cries, “the joy of Thy salvation.” Fallen Peter goes out and “weeps bitterly.” The author of that hymn,
“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy praise.”

(whose name was Robinson, I think) became a backslider from his God after the composition of those verses. One day in a stage-coach he met a lady who, without knowing his identity, told him how much she loved the hymn, and what a source of comfort it had been to her. “Ah, madam,” he sighed, “I wrote those verses, and I would give worlds now, if I possessed them, if I could have the joy I experienced at that time.”

Many a child of God has lost the joy of his salvation through worldliness and sin, though, thank God, the salvation itself can never be lost, if once possessed. But just because I am His child, God will visit me here on earth with chastisement, if I depart from Him. Old Bishop Fuller tells of seeing two boys fighting. A man came out of a house near by and seizing one of the boys, who was least to blame, gave him a sound trouncing. The Bishop asked him why he did not beat the boy who was most in fault. “Oh,” he said, “this is my son, and I chastise him. I have nothing to do with the other.” “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” God says to Israel, “therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities.” And in the New Testament, though grace is the prominent and leading thing, there is also government as in the Old. “If we would judge ourselves,” the apostle says, “we should not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:31-32). It pays to walk straight, you may depend upon it, children of God. Naomi found this out. “The hand of the Lord is gone out against me,” she says. “The face of the Lord is against them which do evil,” Scripture says, whether they be His own or not.

“I went out full,” Naomi says to her fellow townsmen, “and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.” Yes, she went out, but it was the Lord who brought her home. His watchful eye had never been off her during the long years of her wandering, and His care and love for her had never ceased, even if in chastisement He had been compelled to deal “very bitterly” with her. He will never cast off or disown His child, blessed be His name! and of Jesus, John says, “Having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end” — yes, right to the very end. And if you are His own, His sheep, His word declares you shall never perish. Some people think that preaching the final perseverance of the Saviour with His own will make them careless as to their walk; but I know from blessed experience that it will not. I never hated sin more, or longed more to please my Lord, than after I knew He had saved me with an eternal salvation and would never let me go. It is the fixed stars that tremble most, and it is those who know that they are fixed forever in the family of God, who fear and tremble most lest they should sin against such love and grace.

“The Lord hath brought me home,” Naomi says. Yes, it was still home sweet home. She had wandered far and long, but her heart was never at home in the land of the uncircumcised. Many a time, no doubt, she thought of the “pleasant land” she had left for the country of Moab. The yearly feasts would come often to her mind as the months rolled on in the land of her sorrow. Bethlehem was home to her still. And no matter how far a child of God may wander, or how long a sheep of Christ may stray, the Father’s house and the fold of the Shepherd are sweet home to that wanderer. The first explorers to Greenland took with them ravens, (being without the magnetic needle) and when they wished to know in what direction the nearest land lay, they loosed one of the birds and it flew straight for the nearest shore, regardless of distance. The saved soul is like the carrier pigeon. Release it never so far from its cot, it will, as soon as it gets its bearings, fly straight as an arrow for home. Oh wanderer, if you are here tonight, get your bearings now. Own your sin, judge yourself unsparingly for your folly, and seek the face of God. You have not to be re-converted but restored. This, God has made possible for you. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). He is faithful, notice, because He has pledged Himself to do this very thing. And He is just, for His own Son has borne our sins in His own body on the tree, and the Father can now righteously forgive His wandering child.

Naomi was brought home empty. Some there are who will be “saved so as by fire,” and all their worldly works burnt up — a lifetime lost, but the soul saved, thanks be to God and His grace! (See 1 Corinthians 3:1-23). Oh, for an “abundant entrance” into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! God grant it to us all.

If you are not God’s child, and wish to be, hear the way: “As many as received Him, (Christ) to them gave He power (or right) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. “Believe on His name tonight, poor child of wrath, and you will become one of the holy, happy children of God. Amen.