Navigating Life's Famine: Lessons from the Book of Ruth

Were open, plural.

And then it says in the book.

And so I wonder what all them other books are.

There's a place in the Bible that tells us God keeps records of

things and other books.

I don't know if he has a library or not, but it says the book,

the book was written, and whosoever was not found written in

that book, the book of life.

And so that's the most important place that you have your

name to make sure it was recorded and thank God, because we're

saved by grace.

God doesn't have to erase.

If he had to get saved over and over and over again, he'd have

to write it down, then erase it, and then write it down again

and then erase it.

I mean, kidding you, that's kind of silly, isn't it?

Ridiculous.

But Jesus paid it all.

We're paid for, bought, paid for.

And so if your name's written down and you say, I hope it is, that's

not good enough.

You don't want to hope because after you die, there's no names written

there.

They're already in the book.

And so you need to make sure.

You say, well, how can you be so sure?

Well, you've got to make up your mind whether you're going to

believe the Bible or not.

And the Bible tells us very clearly these things are written

that you may know you have eternal life, and yet you ask people

all the time.

And most of the time their answer will be, well, I sure hope

so.

I think so.

I believe it might be.

I'm trying.

And all those people are still wondering if they're going to make

it or not.

Well, in Christ we are accepted in the beloved and all our

sins are forgiven.

That's the glory of the gospel.

I mean, gospel means good news.

What would be the good news?

If you can be saved, if you trust Christ.

But you better behave yourself or you might not make it.

Man, you go from that big smile to a frown.

And so we're not serving God out of fear that we might not get

to heaven if we don't serve God, we're serving God out of love.

God first loved us, and we love him.

Take your Bible and go to the book of Ruth.

A little big book of Ruth, only four chapters, but my.

It's one of my favorite.

And I want to preach to you this morning.

And I'm going to finish it actually next Sunday night.

Brother Cox preaching next Sunday morning.

And then I'm going to finish this up Sunday night.

And it's some things in this little book that changed my life.

And I hope it'll help you and change your life and get you to thinking

the Book of Ruth.

Now let me ask you a question.

Have you ever wasted any time in your life?

Kind of ridiculous, isn't it?

You ever wasted any money?

How'd you like to have all the money back that you wasted?

Have you ever wasted opportunities?

You had a great opportunity and you missed it because you began

to second guess.

Or maybe you were late.

That's another message.

But being on time has a lot to do with success in life.

A lot of people get there too late.

A lot of battles, wars could have changed had people gotten there

at the right time.

Can you imagine Jesus ever being late?

Oh, sorry.

I was running behind today.

I'm a little late.

And I know it's a challenge.

Most of us can't brag about how we never late.

But what about wasted time, wasted years?

The Book of Ruth.

This great big book of four chapters.

I preached a lot of sermons from this book.

One of the greatest women in the Bible started out.

She wasn't even saved.

You know Ruth, Ruth was a Moabitess.

She lived in a land of false gods and idol worship.

She got saved after she met Naomi.

She says, I want to know your God.

I want to follow you.

Her sister said, no, I'm going back.

But Ruth, my, what an amazing life.

And what an amazing passage of scripture she actually became.

In the lineage of Christ, she married Boaz.

Boaz is one of the greatest types of Christ in all the Bible.

When you read the Bible, look for Jesus on any page, whatever book

you're in, whether it's Genesis or Revelation, try to look

and find something, someone that reminds you of Christ.

The Bible is about Jesus Christ.

We find him all the way in the book of Genesis.

From the very beginning, when he said, let there be light, Jesus

said, I am the light.

I am the light.

It started out with darkness, and he said there was light.

But there was two things that happened between the darkness and

the light.

If you go back in Genesis 1, it says the Spirit of God moved upon

the face of the deep.

And God said, let there be light.

God said, the word of God, you have darkness, the word of God, the

spirit of God, and then light right in that middle there.

That's what brings the light into the world.

It's what brings the light.

And our country had that light at one time.

We still have those of us who know Christ, but our country said

we don't need any light anymore.

We love darkness rather than Light.

And that's where we are today.

And our kids are being taught to love darkness and that.

That's the normal and that's the best.

And you know what happened as the result of that.

But wasted money, wasted effort, wasted words.

You ever waste words?

What about wasting your parents?

Do you ever wish you could go back and tell Mommy you love her

one more time?

You could have done it so many times, but you wasted those words,

wasted your father.

You ever think about that?

But without a doubt, I think the greatest waste is time.

Our life is so short.

I don't think I have to convince anybody of that.

Life is short.

Can you believe next month we'll be already half through this

year?

Already.

Life is so short and it's so unpredictable and it's so fragile.

And yet many times we waste some of the best years of our life.

You don't want to do that.

And the Bible tells us how we can keep from wasting those lives,

those years.

But what if we could take back all those things that we lost?

I knew I was going to grow old one day.

But I thought it would take longer than what it did.

There's one thing that nobody has plenty of and that's time, the

songwriter said.

I got up on Sunday morning, went to church at 10.

I listened to the words I'd heard time and time again.

The preacher spoke of simple lives it seems he spoke of mine.

But I was young, I had plenty of time.

I walked on down life's pathway, living as I wished to live.

How to beat the other fellow, how to get what life could give.

Making money isn't sinful, Having fun is not a crime.

So I'll just wait.

I've got plenty of time.

Plenty of time to decide where I'm bound.

To eternal darkness or to heaven's grounds.

I'm just a young man not yet in my prime.

So I'll just wait, I've got plenty of time.

Before I knew what happened, life scenes had passed away and millions

stood before God's throne, for it was judgment day.

Now eternal darkness beckons.

And the name it calls is mine.

I thought I had plenty of time.

Eternity waits.

I've got plenty of time to think of all the days that Christ

could have been mine.

Now my time is over.

Earth's days are left behind.

You and I have plenty of time.

Now I've got nothing but plenty of time.

The Book of Ruth, Chapter one.

It says it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there

was a famine in the land.

You might want to underline that word.

You know, there's other kinds of famine than just famine of hunger.

Famine or food not having enough food.

Most of us know nothing of that.

Nothing.

We just think we do.

We sometimes tell our wife or our husband, oh, I'm starving.

Most of us don't know what that means, really.

It's just a figure of speech.

We can get pretty hungry, but there was a famine.

But, you know, sometimes there can be famines of finances.

We seem like we have things going okay.

Security.

And the Bible warns us about don't put your trust in riches, uncertain

riches.

And sometimes we have financial famines we go through.

Things happen we didn't expect.

Now we have to kind of refigure the figure, so to speak.

Sometimes God has to put us in those places of famine to remind

us he's our security, not the government, not money, not our stocks

and bonds.

Just like that.

They can be gone.

It's not a sin to have things.

It's not a sin to have good finances.

But don't build your life on those.

Enjoy them if God gives them to you.

But don't get consumed with the blessing and forget about the

blesser.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all

these things shall be added unto you.

But there was a famine.

Sometimes there can be emotional famine.

We call it depression, where we go through a time in our life

when it just seems like everything's going wrong and everything's

bad.

Marriages can go through famines.

You love your mate, but you're not in love with them.

There's a famine going on.

Something's missing.

Revival in marriages could really make a difference.

There's all kinds of famines.

There's spiritual famines.

Sometimes God hides his face.

He never leaves us.

He never, ever leaves us.

He knows exactly where we are at any moment.

We belong to Him.

He's invested in us.

We belong to Him.

If you're saved, if you've been born again, if you've only been

born once, you're going to have to die twice, physical and then

eternal.

But if you're born twice, physical and a spiritual birth, you

only die once.

And that's really not a death.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, a

Christian really doesn't die.

We just leave our body behind and go on to be with Jesus.

As from the body present with the Lord.

There's all kinds of famines.

But here was a famine in the land of not enough to eat.

And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, the Place of bread,

place of praise.

And so it says, they went to sojourn.

You might want to write that, underline that word or circle sojourn.

It means just to visit for a little while in the country of Moab.

It's a good thing to get used to looking up words.

You're not sure what they mean.

You know what Moab means?

It was a place.

But the word Moab means the place of ease.

And let me tell you something, that's another message.

There's no such place as the place of ease.

The word always says, if you'll live here, it'll be much easier.

If you'll go here, it'll be much easier if you'll do this.

Everybody wants to find an easy place.

It doesn't exist in this world, but yet we keep falling for

it, and we keep trying to find it and follow after it.

Somewhere where it's easy.

Well, that's what they did.

They went to Moab, He, Elimelech and his wife Naomi.

And they had two sons.

The name of the man was Elimelech, which means, my God is

king, and yet there's a famine on the land and he's in Panic City.

And he said, we got to get out of here.

The name of the wife was Naomi.

Her name means pleasant.

In the next chapter, or near the end of this chapter, actually.

Won't go there.

We'll get there in a minute.

But she got away from God and she came back home with Ruth.

And she said everybody just kind of went out to meet her and

said, it's Naomi.

And she said, don't ever call me Naomi again.

She wasn't smiling when she said it.

She said, call me Marah, which means bitter.

Bitter.

Interesting that her name changed.

Naomi wasn't pleasant anymore.

Not yet she will be.

But the name of the two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, those are interesting,

strange names.

One means sickly and one means pining.

So she had two sons that were sick, pining, weak.

Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah, and they came into the country

of Moab, the place of ease.

And then what does it say?

They continued there.

First of all, they sojourned.

This is going to go for a little while.

Well, now, this sojourning, they're taking more time.

And then very quickly.

It's kind of interesting how fast it changed.

Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, you say?

Well, he would have died anyway.

I don't know.

I don't know that.

And you don't either.

And you.

And I don't know when we're going to die.

If you're saved, we don't dread it.

Death is not something to be dreaded as Christians, by the way.

If we're scratching, clawing and screaming our way to keep from

dying, what kind of testimony is that to a lost world?

We're going to heaven.

Yeah, I want to live long.

I want to enjoy my family.

There's still things I. Oh, on my spiritual bucket list.

Do you have one of those, by the way?

A spiritual bucket list?

Nothing wrong with having a bucket list.

One day you'd like to do this and visit here and go there.

Nothing wrong with that.

But do you have a spiritual bucket list that you'd like to win

someone to Christ before you die?

Or maybe another one?

Or another one.

Maybe you have a bucket list.

You'd like to sing in the choir one day or teach Sunday school

class one day.

Or you'd like to win your family to Christ.

Spiritual read through the Bible.

I won't ask you to raise your hand, but how many of you read through

the Bible from COVID to cover?

Doesn't mean you're not a good Christian if you don't.

Doesn't mean you're a good Christian if you do.

I'm just asking, be a good thing.

But before I die, I'd like to say, yeah, I've read all the way

through the Bible.

But they continued there.

And her husband died and she was left, and her two sons, now it

says they took them.

Wives of the women of Moab.

Her sons were Christians.

They served God and were waiting and looking for the Messiah.

He said, well, how could they be saved?

Jesus hadn't died yet.

Well, there's only one way to be saved, that's through Christ.

They either believed he was coming to die or he came to die.

They were saved on credit.

We're saved on cash.

Okay?

It took just as much of faith to them to believe that Jesus, one

day God was going to send his son the Messiah.

And they believed that.

Not all of them.

A Jew's not going to heaven just because he's Jewish.

He still has to be saved.

And some of the hardest people in the world to win are Jewish people

because they believe, because they're Jewish.

They got a reserved seat and we ought to weep over them.

The Apostle Paul said, I wish myself accursed for my kinsman's

sake.

In other words, he would be willing to die without Christ if

all of his brothers could be saved.

That's kind of deep, isn't it?

But they Took wives.

The two sons, women of Moab were.

They were not a Christian nation.

She had two Christian boys that married unsaved women.

The Bible tells us about that.

But some people.

Yeah, I know, but.

I know, but I really love him.

Or I really love her.

And they'll get saved later.

Or I'll tell them about Jesus later.

You know that's very foolish, don't you?

That's why you need to be careful that you don't date unsaved

people.

Are you listening, young people, you say, well, how do I know?

Find out.

Ask them.

Most of the time they'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm saved.

How'd you get saved?

I don't know.

It just kind of happened one day.

That's not how you get saved.

That's not how you get saved by just waiting on something to happen.

You put your faith in something that already happened.

Christ, his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection in the

God, man.

That's how you get saved.

But they married unsaved women.

And the name of one was Orpah.

Not Oprah, but Orpah.

Okay.

Another interesting name.

Orpah means the back of my neck.

That's what it means.

You know why?

Because in a few minutes, Ruth says, I'm going with you, Naomi.

And she said, I'm going back.

The other one said, I'm going back to Moab.

And all they saw was the back of her neck as she walked away.

Strange that that's what her name meant.

You say, well, I don't know about that.

Well, okay, but that's just what her name meant.

We don't know.

People probably never got saved so close.

Just as close as Ruth was.

She probably heard the same testimony, the same things that Naomi

shared with him.

And the name of the other was Ruth.

Ruth means companion or friend.

Some even think it might even be related to the word grace.

Ruth, because she wasn't saved.

Because she was a better woman than her sister.

No, we're not saved by being good or bad.

We're saved by what you do with Christ.

That's all that matters.

What you do with Jesus.

That's the most important thing you say.

Well, I haven't made up my mind.

Jesus said, if you're not for me, you're against me.

He already said, I'm for you.

But are you for me?

He died for you.

He died for people who will never be saved.

You say, well, then I just need to believe.

No, the Bible says the devil believes you need to receive Christ

to as many as Received him to them, gave you power to become the

sons of God.

You know you're a sinner.

Good.

That's a good thing.

The hardest thing to.

You know why it's so hard to win people?

Because they don't think they're lost.

They think, well, I'm just as good as you are, Preach.

Guess what?

I'm not the standard.

That's not good enough.

Only Christ is the standard.

When you're as good as Jesus.

Never even had a bad thought.

Jesus never had to say, I'm sorry.

He never said, whoops, if you're that good, you can probably

go right into heaven.

But if you're not, you're lost.

Ruth, she chose to follow her mother in law, but actually she was

following God.

She says, I want to know you are God.

I'll show you that in a moment.

But then the Bible says, they dwelt there 10 years.

Sojourn continued.

And then in verse four, they dwelled there 10 years.

How'd you like to have 10 years back?

Say, I don't know.

Well, when you get older you say, I would sure like to have 10

years back.

I'm 72.

I don't know if I'll see 82 or not.

Maybe not worried about it.

I'm living by faith.

Enjoying the ride.

I already got a mansion prepared.

I'm not looking forward.

You know, I think it was Charles Swindoll.

Not long ago.

He said, I am not.

How did he put it?

He said, I'm not afraid to die.

I just don't want to be there when it happens.

We don't know how we're going to die.

But listen, let me tell you something.

God will give grace when you need it.

God doesn't give us grace to put in the bank.

Grace to put in the shoebox.

Slide it under the bed.

God says, when you need grace, you need grace to live.

Amen.

That's how you get saved, by grace.

And when it's time for you to go home, if you know Christ as your

personal savior, he'll give you the grace.

So don't worry about it.

Enjoy the ride.

But they dwelt there 10 years and then it says, and Mahlon and

Chilion died also.

So she lost a husband and two sons.

And now you have these two women who were married.

Now they're single, they're lost.

And she was left, the three of them.

Then she arose with her daughters in law that she might return

from the country of Moab.

So she's going home, she's going Back to Bethlehem, Judah, where

there was a famine.

Because she heard that there was bread now in the land to return

to the country.

For she had heard how God had visited his people, giving them the

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.

What is that the same Naomi that we sometimes look at as a heroine?

Well, she's going to get some priorities straightened out and she's

going to become a great mother in law.

But this was when she was backslidden.

She hadn't been where she should have been for 10 years.

She was out of the will of God.

She should have stayed in the will of God.

It's better to stay in the will of God if there's a famine than

to get out of the will of God where they got fullness of bread.

Now, that's easy to preach.

It's a little difficult to practice.

When things go wrong, you start wondering and then you start

wandering.

10 years and now she wants to send them back.

They're not even saved yet.

You want to send them back where they'll never hear about the

one and only true God.

Yeah.

And the Lord deal kindly with you.

God's not going to deal kindly with two women going back away from

God as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

The Lord grants you that you may find rest.

There is no rest outside of Jesus Christ.

You might sleep good, but there's no rest in your soul and

in your heart and in your life without Christ.

Jesus says, come unto me, all you that are tired and heavy laden,

and I'll give you rest.

When Naomi's not giving good advice, be careful who you take advice

from.

Amen.

Be careful.

God can use good godly people to say, here's what I think you ought

to do.

There's nothing wrong with that, but just make sure.

As far as you know, only God knows.

But as far as you know that person is serving God, that they're

in the will of God.

They love God.

They're not ashamed.

They know where they're going.

They know how they're gonna get there.

Be careful when you ask advice from other people.

I did not say, don't ever do that.

God can work.

God can use that.

He's used people in my life.

Amen.

The 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.

Now that's a good sign.

They had a tender heart.

I don't know that Naomi had a tender heart.

She has burdened, broken, confused.

But she's telling her daughter in laws, go on back home.

And they wept.

And they said unto her, surely we will return with thee unto thy

people.

Naomi said, again.

Turn again.

Turn around.

My daughters, will you go with me?

Or are there yet any more sons in my womb that you may.

That may be your husbands.

Turn again, man.

She's.

She's on a mission.

And my daughters, go your way.

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man.

At the end thereof are the ways of death.

The Bible says most of us, our problem is we want to do it our way

instead of God's way.

She said, I'm too old to have husband.

If I should say I have hope.

If I should have an husband also tonight and should bear sons,

also bear sons, would you tarry for them till they were grown?

Would you stay for them from having husbands?

Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth me much for your sake that

the hand of God, the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.

I want you to understand that.

She didn't say against us.

She didn't say against my husband.

I don't really know now, are you listening?

I don't know, but it's something to think about that God

might use in our life.

Was it Elimelech, Naomi's husband?

Was he the one that decided, we're getting out of here because

there's a famine?

Or was it her?

Was he a backslidden husband and leader and wasn't leading well,

and said, back up, we're going.

And maybe Naomi could have been a submissive wife and said,

well, okay.

Or could it have turned around?

Maybe her husband was passive and weak and didn't really know God

that well, and she was kind of ruling the roofs and said, we're

going, honey, whether you like it or not.

The Bible doesn't say I'm not adding to Scripture.

But it is interesting.

Cause she's going to say it again in a moment.

She says, God hath dealt bitterly with me.

Me.

It's almost like she's saying, we got into this mess because of

me.

Again, I'm not being dogmatic about that.

But I know in a lot of families the men are not leading

the way they should lead.

They're to follow Christ.

The wife should follow her husband, and the husband should follow

Christ.

Sometimes Women have to lead the way because their husband is

not interested in spiritual things or.

Or they're not even saved many times.

And so a woman has to raise the kids to love God and live for

God.

We ought to pray for situations like that, or single mothers

or single fathers.

I can't resist from chasing this rabbit.

But, ladies, you have a lot of influence on your husband and husbands.

You have a lot of influence on your wives.

And the Bible tells men to love their wives as Christ loved

the church and gave himself for it.

She said, the lord in verse 13 has gone out against me.

And they lifted up their voice and wept again.

So this is not an easy thing going on here.

And Orpah kissed her mother in law goodbye.

But Ruth clave unto her.

And she said, behold, thy sister in law is gone.

Back unto her people and unto her gods.

Little G, return thou after thy sister, boy.

She is determined to try to get Ruth to go.

But God had plans for Ruth.

He could have also had plans for Orpah.

You see, everybody has a decision, ladies and gentlemen.

You can blame anybody you want to, but you have the freedom to decide.

And you don't have to just guess.

The Bible says he will give you all the counsel that you want.

All you got to do is ask.

You have a Bible not only that tells us how to live, but even gives

us illustrations of people, what happened to them when they didn't

live for God.

And then it has people in the Bible what happens when they did

live for God.

So you have a Bible that even has pictures in it.

In Ruth, verse 16.

You know this verse?

It's very famous.

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.

I don't know if she was saved right there in that verse or not.

I think probably before this, she realized the light came on.

And she realized her past and her present and her future.

And she said, I'm going with you.

And I'm going to serve your God, who is now 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.

And look at this.

When she, Naomi, saw that she, Ruth, was steadfastly minded, she

made up her mind.

She didn't say, well, I just can't make up my mind.

I don't know what to do.

No, she said, I've already made up my mind.

Multitudes today are in the valley of decisions trying to make

up their mind if I'm going to serve God or do what I want to do.

By the way, you don't give up anything to follow Jesus.

Most people think you do.

Well, I don't know if I'm ready to give up everything.

Hey, I don't even remember what I had when I got Christ into

my life.

I don't even remember.

I didn't give up anything.

I mean, not worth mentioning.

It was just a bunch of junk and tricks and deceits.

I met Jesus and I got everything.

I didn't say, oh, well, I guess I'll give up all that good

stuff and follow Jesus.

I'll be a good little Christian.

Are you kidding me?

You ever met anybody in their life that said they were sorry they

became a Christian?

You ever meet anybody who said, I wish I'd been a Christian

sooner?

You ever met anybody who got saved and got away from God for a

while and they came back and said, I wish so bad I'd not wasted

those years wandering around the world?

She was steadfastly minded to go with her.

Then she left.

Speaking unto her, Naomi said, all right, I won't bring it up anymore.

Let's go.

She made up her mind.

Some of you need to do that today.

You got one foot in the world and one foot in the word of God or

the Bible, and you can't decide where to put both feet at.

You might not be saved.

I don't know.

I'm not here to try to make you doubt your salvation.

But, hey, if anybody can make you doubt your salvation, it's better

to doubt it now and get it settled than to wait till after you

die and wake up in hell and say, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish.

If I had only.

If I had only.

I was that close, I almost.

So they went, they two went together until they came to Bethlehem.

And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all

the city was moved about them.

That's interesting.

The whole city welcomed them back.

And they said, is this Naomi?

They didn't hardly recognize her.

You know, sometimes, and I hesitate to say this, but sometimes

people can get so far away from God that they look different.

They look hard.

They don't have the glow they used to have.

They don't seem to smile as much.

They don't have the joy.

They look kind of rough.

Not everybody, but I'm just saying, my wife and I Have noticed

that through the years because we were there when they got saved.

And then they left for a long time without God and without the

church and without the Bible.

And we saw them again, and we look at each other and go, oh, no.

You say, well, that's not going to happen to me.

Is this Naomi?

And she said unto them, call me not Naomi.

So she must have had some real true repentance.

She said, don't even go there.

Call me Mara.

For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with.

There it is again.

Me.

She could have said, yeah, my dumb husband.

It was his idea for us to move to Moab.

And I went along, as a good Christian wife should do.

It's his fault.

No, she said, God hath spake to me.

Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.

That's one way, you know, There's a lot of ways.

But another way, you know for sure you're saved is you get away

from God.

God's going to chasten you.

He's going to spank you.

He's going to discipline you.

Some people go out in the world and they don't miss the church

or the Bible or they used to be singing the choir and they used

to teach Sunday school.

And they're out and gone and they seem to be prospering and happier

and fine, they just kind of look that way, but they're not.

It's all a pretense.

But God doesn't spank them.

They're not his.

You wouldn't let some stranger spank your kids, would you?

Parents, would you do that?

Would you let some other parent grab your kid and begin to

wear them out and spank them?

That's ridiculous, isn't it?

God doesn't spank unsaved people.

He doesn't have to.

Their sin will find them out when it takes its course.

Sin when it is finished.

We look at people, wonder how they get away with it, because it's

not finished yet.

When it's sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death.

God says, I don't want you to do that.

I want to bless you.

I want to take care of you.

I want to supply your needs.

I'm going to preach on the rest on this, chapter two, the Lord

willing, next Sunday night, if God leads.

But she meets Boaz, and I mean, she falls madly in love with

Boaz, Ruth does.

And she's out gleaning in a field, and he looks at her and goes,

wow.

And the Bible says that Ruth started gleaning picking up sheaves

of wheat in Boaz's field.

And Boaz came up to her.

They hadn't got married yet, but they will soon.

And he said to her, don't go gleaning another field.

Stay right here.

Right in.

This is my property.

Right here.

It's a square.

Don't go anywhere else.

I don't care how it looks.

I don't care how you think.

It's much better.

Grass is greener on the other side.

Forget it.

What he was saying is, I love you and I'm going to take care of

you.

She didn't know that yet.

But he said, don't go to another field.

You ever heard the expression, stay in the box?

I'll tell you something before you hear that.

Usually they say you got to think outside the box.

You ever heard that?

I have, many times.

Because if you think it, you'll do it.

You fall the way you lean.

You lean the way you think.

And Boaz is going to tell her to stay within that square.

You say, well, okay, but it sounds like a prison to me.

That's how deceptive the devil is.

The prison's out there, not in here.

I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts, the Commandments.

That's where the real liberty is.

That's where the good life is.

That's where the joy is that doesn't depend on people or things

or circumstances.

That's the good life staying in the box.

Call me, not Naomi.

Mar Almighty hath dealt very bitterly.

Verse 21.

We're almost through.

I went out full.

And the Lord hath brought me home again, empty.

I thought she went out empty and wanted to come back full.

Well, she realized she already had more than unsaved people have.

I went out full, even though there was a famine.

God was still taking care of us.

And I've come home empty.

Why then call ye me, Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against

me.

There it is again.

And Almighty hath afflicted me.

There it is again, four times.

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.

And when you read about harvest in the Bible, it always speaks

of revival, of blessing, of joy, when you're where you're supposed

to be, even if it don't feel like it.

We don't live by feeling, ladies and gentlemen.

We live by faith.

Feelings are deceptive.

Your feelings can change in seconds.

You could be on top of the mountain and Five seconds later on

the bottom the valley.

It's hard to not follow your feelings.

I know that from experience.

I know that sometimes it feels right, but it's not right.

It takes faith to say, I'm staying, I'm going to trust God.

Right in the middle of the famine.

God already promised.

We sang it a moment ago.

Standing on the promises that cannot stand Listening every moment

to the spirit's call Resting in my Savior as my all in all Standing

on the promises of God.

That's what it's all about.

Not feeling.

It takes faith.

Where does faith come from?

Anybody know?

Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

So the devil wants to keep you out of the Bible in any way and every

way he can.

Most Christians do not read the Bible every day.

They may pray for faith, but the Bible says faith doesn't come

by prayer.

I don't know that it would be a sin to say, lord, give me more

faith.

But I think if we say, lord, give me more faith, he's probably

gonna hand you this book because this is where your faith

resources are, right in here.

And you don't just read it, you do it.

Truth changes nothing until it is applied.

You know why it's so hard for you to read the Bible every day?

Because if you do, you're going to have faith.

And that faith is going to hold you steady when your feelings

is saying do the opposite.

But you're going to be grounded.

That's why it's so important to find a church that preaches the

word of God.

Not what people want to hear, but what they need to hear.

I know I've said enough, but that just falls out, doesn't it?

Where do you get to chapter two next Sunday night if the Lord

doesn't come, even so come Lord Jesus.

But if he doesn't come next Sunday night, you'll be amazed in

chapter two.

Go ahead and read it if you want to.

Then you can sleep that night.

No, I'm just kidding.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

I woke a few people up just then.

That was.

Should have done that again.

Just kidding.

Let's stand with our heads bowed and eyes closed.

We're getting ready to leave here in just a minute or two.

Don't waste any more time wandering around looking for an easier

place.

Listen, you're not going to find a better place than in the will

of God.

No one will ever find a place better than to be in the will of

God.

And if you're in the word of God, you're in the will of God if

you're obeying, trust and obey.

When I sing a verse of invitation I have decided to follow

Jesus Decided, decided, made up my mind the world behind me, the

cross before me Though no one joined, still I will follow.