"She [Naomi] had heard in the country of Moab that
"the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread."
"What good news! She heard the famine was over, and that there was plenty. Plenty and to spare in the Father's house. She is drawn by that to come back to God. She was not drawn back to the land because she loved God, or because she repented of her sin, but because she heard that the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread. That is the good news that brings the backslider home; and when the backslider comes home, others come into the joy and blessedness of a full redemption. Oh! that the Lord may so bless us, that others may hear of it, and want to come home. When the Lord's people are blessed the backsliders will come home, the prodigals will come home and the Ruths will come home. This will bring joy to the Lord and joy to His people.
"When Naomi, Orpah and Ruth first heard the news they started for home. These three are types of those whose hearts are moved by God's grace.
"First, there was Naomi. She was a backslider, but there was no deep conviction of sin in her heart. She did not realize that she had stayed away from God all these years, and had continued in the land that was under God's curse. She was not convicted, nor had she real hope in God. There was no longing like:
"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" Ps. xl. 1, 2.
"Oh that she had come back in that spirit! She had no faith like the returning backslider in Psalm xlii. 8:
"Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."
"If she had come back in that spirit of desire and faith, how richly would God have rewarded her, and blessed her. She is a type of some who do come back from backsliding indeed, but they do not come back with a broken and contrite spirit, and so do not get all that God wants them to get.
"Secondly, there was Orpah. Orpah starts to go forth out of the country of Moab, but, when Naomi tells Orpah and Ruth to go back,
"They lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law."
And then she returned "unto her people, and unto her gods".
"Orpah did start, but was soon discouraged and went back. Orpah had not got that true heart we read of in Heb. x. 22. The writer of the Hebrews is urging Christians to come right into the Holiest, that there they may be sanctified Christians. He bids them come 'with a true heart'. Orpah had no true heart. Her spirit was not steadfast with God, Psalm lxxvii. 8. She did not want to go, cost what it may, to the country of the Lord of Hosts. She was not coming in that spirit, and so she yielded to the temptation, and she went back. Well may the Lord say to us, 'Remember Lot's wife.' She started well, but looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. I do not doubt that round about us are those who have turned into pillars of salt. Let us be warned. Let us draw near with a true heart, with real decision, with an honest heart, covering up nothing, opening your heart wholly to Him, seeking Him, and ready to go forward cost what it may.
"The third one was Ruth. She was not like Orpah; her heart was steadfast with God. Three times over in this first chapter she is tempted, and tested as to whether she will go back, but she is steadfastly minded to go on. How fully and clearly she states her decision, and shows by its very wording that it is based on love:
"Intreat 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."
"Here is a real renunciation of her own kindred and country in order that she may be with the one she loves. She separates herself from what was hitherto gain to her, and counts it loss. She appropriates to herself Naomi's people and Naomi's God, and consecrates herself to go all the way even unto death.
"This is an illustration of real faith and surrender.
"Whither thou goest I will go."
"This is the path that she chooses for her life. It meant turning her back on her old ways, and turning towards new ways which she did not know.
"Where thou lodgest, I will lodge."
"This is the choice of companionship which she makes because her heart has been won.
"Thy people shall be my people."
"This is the choice of fellowship with those who love the Lord. She made it for love of one of God's people. We make it because 'the love of Christ constraineth us'. She came out from the world in which she lived in order to have fellowship with God's people. She is determined to press on with Naomi right through.
"And thy God my God."
"Her ultimate goal was God Himself, Whose blessing she fully received.
"How truly Ruth fulfilled the Psalmist's injunction and she fully enjoyed the promised reward.
"Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him." Psalm xlv. 10, 11.
"The great choice presents itself to Orpah and to Ruth. It is a choice of faith, drawn by love. Ruth by faith enters the pilgrim pathway. Orpah, influenced by natural reasons, turns back, just as many of the disciples did (John vi. 66) when the way got too hard for them. Orpah had no root in herself (Mark iv. 17) and so when difficulties appeared she turned back. This is the great choice that comes to all who hear the Gospel (Deut. xxx. 15). And Orpah and Ruth illustrate the two ways in which it is received.
"So Naomi came home with Ruth.
"And they came to Beth-lehem in the beginning of barley harvest."
"What she had heard was true. She had come to Bethlehem whose name means the House of Bread. It was harvest time. When backsliders come back it is always harvest time. There is the joy of harvest, the plenty of harvest, the prosperity and the abundance of harvest for her, and she may well rejoice in the Lord.
"It was the beginning of the barley harvest. So it was the Passover time, when the people were remembering God's great salvation. The joy of passover was in the land. They were thinking of God, their wonderful Deliverer and Provider, and worshipping Him. When a backslider comes back, there will be restored to him the joy of salvation and of peace with God: the Passover joy of deliverance out of Egypt into the Kingdom of God.
"Christ still delivers out of the power of Satan and brings us under His care and protection.
"God is just the same to-day. He deals with souls just as He dealt with Naomi and Ruth. To those who come back to Him with an honest and a true heart He opens the riches of His grace. It is harvest time indeed, and more than that. To them the riches of the Kingdom of Heaven are given. Christ Himself in Love goes forth to them, they are met by His faithfulness and His grace, and they rejoice with God's people, in all the abundance of God's redemption and salvation.
"They had come to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. We read in the twenty-sixth of Deuteronomy:
"And it shall be, when thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein; that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth . . . And thou shalt go unto the priest . . . and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us."
"Ruth had thus come into the land, and she was, as it were, setting down her basket before the Lord, and professing that she had been an outcast 'ready to perish', but was come into the land, and was rejoicing there."
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