The Test

"Then they lifted up their voices, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clung to her."

Ruth 1:14

We have watched Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, bring his wife and family out of the land of Bethlehem to dwell in the country of Moab. I suggested that it was a very grievous sin on Elimelech's part to do what he did. God had forbidden his people to have any contact or communion or fellowship with the Moabites or with the Ammonites, and he had also told them that a famine was one of the means by which he would visit the sins of his people. But instead of turning back to God, and instead of repenting and acknowledging their sin, Elimelech brings Naomi and his sons Mahlon and Chilion to the land of Moab.

Naomi, however, was not long in the land of Moab when she discovered the hard lesson for herself that sin can only produce death. Their eyes had been fixed on the apparent richness of Moab, and she had come to Moab in contradiction of the express command of God. There, Elimelech died and Naomi was left, and her two sons. They married wives of the women of Moab, Orpah and Ruth, and ten years later Mahlon and Chilion died, and Naomi, Orpah and Ruth were together widows in this country of Moab. They had left Bethlehem-Judah and they had come to Moab expecting to find great things; instead all that they were left with were broken hearts and broken dreams, and sore experiences under God's hand.

But the Book of Ruth teaches us about God's providence bringing good out of evil, bringing blessing out of sin. It shows us that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Elimelech had to leave Bethlehem so that Ruth would return there. Mahlon and Chilion had to leave Bethelehem so that Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, would be reared in these hallowed precincts, in the land of Judah. One generation makes way for another because God's purpose is like a stream through the desert; and although Satan might have momentary victories with us, God in Christ will win the war. Satan wants nothing more than that we should turn our back on God and his covenant, but it never works. Sin always brings loss. However, God's grace will triumph, even where sin abounds.

The lesson of the Book of Ruth is that there is a river running throughout all the events of history, winding its way both to the mountain tops of blessing and into the valley of despair and desolation. That river of God's covenantal purposes is going to work out for the good of Ruth, and ultimately for the good and the salvation of the whole Church. It was from Ruth that David was born and it was from the line of David that Christ came. So the lesson we are about to learn in studying this part of God's word is that even the darkest events of our lives have their role to play in the unfolding and the revealing of God's gracious purposes of salvation.

Before we go on, however, I want to draw your attention to the use of words in this book. We have already noted that Elimelech's name is significant. There are other words that are significant too. We must always remember that when the spirit of God inspired the scriptures, he gave the words. The Bible was not an arbitrary collection of religious ideas, but the word of God given in the words of men. And the Spirit of God superintended the writing of these words, so that as the holy writers of the Old Testament penned the sacred Scriptures, the thoughts of God were given expression in the words of men. The writers were borne by the Spirit of God (2 Peter 1:21). So it was not just the general idea that was inspired, but the very words themselves.

When we study the language of this book, there is a very interesting word usage. When the Book of Ruth refers to Judah, the word that is used to describe Judah is the word "land"; "there was a famine in the land," we read in verse one. And in verse seven we read that they returned to their own land, to the land of Judah. But whenever Moab is mentioned in this chapter, the word that is used is the word country. "There was a famine in the land of Judah so Elimenech went to sojourn in the country of Moab" (verse 1); "they came into the country of Moab and remained there" (verse 2); "Naomi heard in the country of Moab how the Lord visited his people," (verse 6), so she went back "to the land of Judah" (verse 7).

That is a very interesting distinction.The word that is translated in this chapter as 'land' is used almost three hundred times in the Bible to describe the whole earth, or the whole world. It's a word that describes a great vast expanse of territory, whereas the word 'country' is a word that means a defined, limited, allotted portion of territory.

So the Hebrew describes these events very carefully. There was a famine in the [vast] land of Judah and they went to the [limited] territory of Moab. It is almost as if the writer is telling us that they thought that Moab was going to give them so much. They thought that Moab was so full, that Moab held a promise of great riches and vast blessings. They did not realise that the moment they left Judah they left the greater for the lesser, the unlimited for the limited. The land of covenant blessing, however small a physical geographical area it may have been, represented a vast world of God's great blessings of salvation. They left the vast inheritance that God gave to his people, to go to a limited portion of Moab that promised so much, but could give them so little.

I suppose that the day, ten years after her husband died, when Naomi stood there with her two daughters-in-law, these young widows from Moab, it came home to her just how small Moab really was. They had left Judah a whole decade before this, thinking that Moab could give them everything. But Moab could give them nothing. Moab gave them a little tiny corner in which to bury their beloved dead. Moab gave them grief and tears and heartache and sorrow and loss. And those who have their inheritance in the glory know that that is always what Moab does, that is always what sin does, that is always what the world does.

People think that to become a Christian is to become narrow-minded, whereas what the Bible says is that it is the Christian who knows the blessing of fullness and vastness and liberty and release and freedom. It is the man who is still in his sins who is confined, chained and limited in what he can do and in what he can achieve and in where he can go. Let's never forget that. It's the man who lives in his sins that is narrow-minded, not the Christian. The man who sins is the man who has forsaken the vastness of God's covenant blessings for all the empty promises of Moab. In Psalm 73, Asaph confesses that he envied the wicked, who were prospering in the world, whereas, after all the years of his service and worship, he had nothing but grief, heartache and tears. Yet when he saw things from God's perspective he realised that the wicked had nothing; that the little they had would eventually be taken from them. He was the rich man. Sometimes we need to keep that perspective of faith. Otherwise we will be under the tyranny of our circumstances. Judah is our world, full and overflowing with the goodness of God.

Well, they were now in the country of Moab. And it was in the country of Moab that Naomi heard the news that was to change her attitude and the whole course of her life. She heard in the country of Moab how the Lord had visited the land of Judah; he had visited his people and given them bread. God's famines, in the experience of his people, are never permanent. They are seasonal. The chastening is not for ever, but for the moment. Perhaps the famine in your soul today is there so that you will turn to God in repentance and reformation.

There is something else here. Naomi did not hear this news on a television or on the internet. There was no instant communication here. It took a while for this news to filter through from the land of Judah to the country of Moab. So all that time, all the time that God's people were feasting on bread in Judah, all the time it took for the news to filter through to Moab, Moab was giving Naomi nothing but burden upon burden upon burden. The events remind us of the prodigal son of Luke 15 who had left his father's house; all the time that he was away from his father's house even the servants of his father were being filled with the bread that was there, which was overflowing in its abundance.

You see, God's blessings are there for us to enjoy, and if we do not make use of them, we will be the poorer. Why should we go hungry when there is bread enough and to spare in our father's house? Why should we court sin, and Satan, and self, when in Jesus Christ there is a fulness of grace which will be enough for us? The moment we turn away from God we become lean, and hungry. Yet all the while those who remain faithful to him are making use of his constant supply of grace. Why should we go without when the storehouse of his grace and goodness overflows?

God was good to Naomi. He gave her the opportunity to return. He does not promise to give us such an opportunity. He says that this is our moment, our time for repentance. Naomi heard that God visited his people, then she arose. What a blessing she arose and went when she did! What a blessing that she took charge of her life and left Moab, and went back to the land of Judah. What about you? Is it time for you too to wake up to the reality of your situation and your need?

When Naomi left the country of Moab for the land of Judah, her daughters-in-law went with her. Orpah and Ruth left Moab along with Naomi. So in this first chapter, three testimonies converge: the story of Orpah, the story of Naomi, and the story of Ruth.

And you'll notice this too, that these three women had one thing in common. They all wept on the way. Did you notice that? Naomi talks with them, and they talk with Naomi, and they lifted up their voice and wept. Orpah kissed her mother in law, but Ruth clave to her. Ruth and Orpah and Naomi left Moab behind, and went weeping on that road.

But I think these three women shed very different kinds of tears. There's a sense in which they were all tears of regret. Orpah regretted that she had ever left Moab at all; the pull of Moab was so strong on her heart and her life that she soon went back to her people and back to her gods. Naomi regretted that she had ever left Bethlehem, the land of covenant promise; hers were tears of repentance, tears that were bringing her back to the God from whom she had strayed, back to the land that she had left behind. But the tears of Ruth were tears of regret too; regret that she had never left Moab long before this. All she wanted now was to go with Naomi to enjoy the blessings of God's provision in Bethlehem, the house of bread. So the journey from Moab soon became a parting of the ways.

Orpah's Story

What about Orpah? She accompanied Naomi and Ruth as they left Moab, but she found it surprisingly easy to return, to go back to the land of Moab where she had grown up and which she knew so well, whose people and whose gods held so much attraction for her. She lifted up her voice and she wept; but she still went back. And she cried loudly, with strong tears on the way; but she still went back to Moab.

There's a sense, I suppose, in which she had really never left Moab at all. Her story tells us that beginning is not everything. Here was a woman who began,who set out. To all intents and purposes she turned her back on an old way of life, and on a former way of life, with all its attractions and all its gods. Had we seen her in the beginning of the journey, we would have said "A change has come over Orpah." Had we seen her tears flowing; had we heard her voice lifted up as Naomi spoke to her on the roadside, had we seen her as she left Moab and took the road down towards Bethlehem, we would have said, "Orpah? Orpah's a changed person."

But the tragedy was that Orpah was not a changed person. It is very possible for a sinner to shed Orpah tears. Indeed, it is all too possible for a man or a woman or a boy or a girl to do exactly what Orpah did; to have great emotional experiences and great moving experiences, all of which give the promise of better things and of genuine change. Orpah heard, because Naomi heard, that God had visited the land of Judah and given his people bread. She knew that God's voice was speaking to her soul and Naomi drew her to leave Moab. But it is all too possible to set out from Moab and yet go back to Moab.

Every ending has a beginning. For Ruth to come to the land of Bethlehem meant that she had to leave Moab. For every sinner to enter into the portals of glory at the end of life means having to begin to take up the cross and to follow Jesus in this world. But not every beginning, if it's a false beginning, has that kind of ending. It is impossible, we read in Hebrews 6:4 for those who were once enlightened, ("once upon a time", is the meaning of the word 'once' there), to have their repentance renewed if they fall away. These were people who had experience of the power of the Gospel in their hearts and in their souls, who in the words of the writer to the Hebrews "tasted the powers of the world to come," and experienced the heavenly gift, experiences that were not born out of this world, that were not worldly experiences. These experiences were the direct result of the influence of the Gospel on their lives, in their homes and on their souls. They had privileges that others did not have. They saw things that others did not see and they heard things that others didn't hear, and they felt things that others did not feel. Because God stepped in, at one point, to show them the meaning and glory of the Gospel, they cried with tears of remorse for the past and hope for the future. But their hope, like their tears, was a false one. They were like the seed in the parable which fell by the wayside, and among the stones, and the thorns, and for a little while, it gave great promise because it sprang up (Luke 15:5-7). To all intents and purposes, the Gospel was going to succeed in the lives of these men and women. Until, that is, the sun beat down, and the testing time came, until it proved too difficult; then it was clear that there was no root, nothing under the surface at all, and it withered away. It is possible, says the New Testament, to start out like Orpah, to sweep out the devil that has been resident in your house, to use the Lord's illustration. It is possible to sweep a devil out of your life, to reform your habits and to change your practices only to see seven devils worse than the first coming in again (Luke 11:26).

Orpah started out well. Our Lord says to us that no man putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). Was there a time when you, too, shed tears over the Gospel? When you, too, were so affected by the preaching of the Word and the exalting of Christ? In the proclamation of the evangel perhaps you too shed the tears of Orpah? Do you remember that time in your experience when it was as if God had stood in front of you under the preaching of the Gospel and said "this is for you". And all of a sudden you knew that this was for you as if it were for no-one else. Maybe that had a powerful, transforming effect and an influence on your life and your behaviour and habits. Perhaps people saw an instant transformation. But where are you now? Back in Moab? No nearer Jesus Christ? No nearer God, and the blessings of his covenant salvation?

You know, what matters is not so much how we begin. What matters is that having begun, we might continue following the Saviour. And along the road from Moab to Judah, there are many Orpahs shedding these tears of promise, with emotional and traumatic experiences that seem to signify the beginnings of a new interest. These tears seemed to show that here was a person who had really found the meaning of life and really found the blessing of God's salvation in Christ. But her heart still with her own people and with her own gods.

It is an interesting detail in the parable of the pharisee and the publican in Luke 18:9-14 that Jesus did not commend the publican for coming to the temple. It was good that he was in the temple: he wanted to meet with God, and the temple was the right place to come to. But Jesus did not commend him for being in the temple. Jesus commended him for going home a justified sinner. "I tell you, this man went home justified" is what Jesus said in Luke 18:14. And if there is one thing that is more important than our coming to church, it is the way we go home afterwards. Because to go home without any interest in Christ after Christ's word has come into our mind and into your conscience and into your innermost being, to go home unjustified, is to run the risk, in the words of Hebrews 6:6, of "crucifying the Son of God afresh."

Naomi's Story

So Orpah set out and soon returned; and her tears were tears of regret that she had ever left Moab at all. Naomi shed tears too; she lifted up her voice and wept with them as she reasoned with them about what had happened to her: "the hand of God," she says, "has gone out against me." She knew that it was for her sin and the sin of Elimelech that all this evil and disaster and brokenness had come upon them. "It grieves me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me" (1:13).

Now it's a very interesting thing, that even knowing that God's blessing was on the land of Judah and his curse on the country of Moab, Naomi pleaded with her daughters-in-law to return. I wonder why she did that? I think there are two things we have to say about that.

The first thing we have to say is this: that what she did was wrong. God's blessing was not on Moab, God's blessing was on Judah. God's bread was not in Moab, it was in Bethlehem. That's where God's people were, that's where the blessings of God's covenant were, that is where God visited his people and Naomi was wrong to say to her daughters-in-law "you go back." I wonder if perhaps she was trying in some way to wipe out and to block out the memory of her own past. After all, these daughters-in-law were living symbols and witnesses of her backsliding and the backsliding of Elimelech. God had said about the Moabites, "Don't give your daughters to their sons, or your sons to their daughters. No fellowship, no communion." And here she was now going back to the land of Judah with two daughters-in-law from Moab. And they would be with her as abiding symbols and living signs of her disobedience.

I think there may be many Christians like that in the world. I am not saying that they are encouraging others to go back. What I mean is that they've spent so long chasing after sin and running away from God and trying to find pleasure in this and that and the other thing in this world that even now, even having found peace with God, the scars of these former days are with them still.

There are saints in Christ's kingdom who are carrying with them the scars of the folly of their unconverted days. They are not now what they once were; they have been washed, cleansed, justified and sanctified; yet their very lives and faces are etched with the symbols of their own disobedience and their own sin. Indeed, their greatest grief is that they gave sin and self and Satan the best years of their lives.

That is why it is so important to live by faith. Because, even though our lives may bear the scars of former battles, Christ has indeed dealt with our unforgiving past and our accusing conscience. What Christ does is to wipe that all away. Christ has cleansed from all unrighteousness, and has poured his oil into every scar of sin. We are justified and complete in him.

But I suspect that Naomi was afraid of carrying back to Judah with her the evidences of how far she had strayed from God. It's possible, after all, for good people to do foolish things. You would never have thought David would sleep with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), but he did. You would never have thought that the disciples would have tried to hinder parents from bringing their children to Jesus (Mark 10:13-14), but they did. You would never have thought the disciples could argue in the Upper Room about who would be the greatest (Luke 22:24), but they did. You would never have never have thought that Peter would deny the Lord (Luke 22:54-62), but he did. You would never have thought that Naomi would have encouraged her daughters-in-law to go back to Moab, but she did.

But -- and here is where we see the wonderful grace of God in action --there is something else we've got to say about this too. What was a sin to Naomi became a test to Ruth and to Orpah. That's the way God works. What was a sin on her part was a test to these two women, to Orpah and Ruth. "Go back," she said to them. And even as she tried to cover the marks of her sin instead of getting to the root of the problem and confessing, God was using this to distinguish between the principle of sin in the life of Orpah and the principle of grace in the life of Ruth. We don't read here that Naomi confessed her sin, or made her peace with God. I believe that that came later. But what was a sin to her at this point was a test to them, and it is amazing how God tests the work of his grace in the hearts of his people. He may use even the sins of his people to act as such a test. Orpah fails the test and she goes back, but Ruth can't go back. Her heart has been weaned away from Moab and even when Naomi says to her to return, she says, "I can't return". And even when Naomi says, "Look at your sister-in-law, follow her," Ruth says, "I can't go back. There's nothing for me in Moab any more."

There is nothing I would love more than to hear men and women, boys and girls say, "There's nothing for me in Moab any more." I would love to hear young, and old, and middle-aged who've spent far too long without God and without Christ and without hope in the world, saying "I can't go back." I would love to hear them say, "No, I am going to cleave to the Gospel. Orpah may leave, but I am going to cleave; cleave to the Lord and go with Naomi and with all the people of God on the way to the glory of Bethlehem country and covenant country and the land of plenty and the land of blessing."

So when the test comes; when Christ says as he said in John 6:67 "Will you also go away?", I would love to hear men and women and children say, "To whom shall we go? Christ has the words of eternal life." So do we know anything of the voice of God speaking to our soul? And how have we responded to it? Have we resisted the voice of the Holy Spirit, drawn more to the empty vanities of a Moab life than to the blessings of a covenant life? The richness, the fulness, is in Bethlehem. That is where Naomi is headed, and that is what Orpah loses out on. We will look at Ruth's story in our next study.

© Iain D. Campbell 2001